App Versions & How to distinguish them

The latest version of Product Filter & Search, called App Lib V2, comes with a variety of new features and new upgrades. These changes will help your customers find what they want faster and improve their shopping experience in your Shopify store.

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Differences between App Lib v1 and App Lib v2 and App Lib v3

We understand that some store owners in Shopify still hesitate about upgrading their store to the App Lib V2, that is why the explanation for differences between the two versions of Product Filter & Search is necessary. 

V1 vs. V2

More product filter and site search features

Many new product filter and site search features will be provided, for example:

  • Multiple-level collections & tags filter options: You can organize filter options values in parent-subcategory structures as you like with more collections & tags options.
  • No search result in suggestions & search page: By activating “Search Term Suggestions” and “Product Suggestions”, your store can auto-suggest popular searches and trending products to customers when there are no results matching their entered keywords. This gives your customers more purchasing options and satisfaction.
  • Search results in Collections & Pages: You can show collections and pages from your stores as part of a search result, not just products.
  • Shopify multiple-language & multiple-currency: The new feature helps your customers shop more freely in your store with their preferred language and currency.
  • In-collection search: Customers now can search for products in a specific collection in your Shopify store.
  • Variants Display: You can separate variants of a product and display them as individual products on collection pages, search results pages, and instant search results.
  • Fuzzy Search: Your customers can mistype what they search for. This feature ensures that they can still be suggested relevant products as long as what they mistype and what they search for share the first character.
  • Canonical URLs for product pages: The feature helps your store prevent duplicate content issues and improve the general rankings of your store's website.
  • Shorten URLs: You can now shorten URLs and make it easier for your customers to share your content. As a result, the user experience of your online store can be significantly improved.
  • Layout settings for instant search: The feature lets you customize your instant search’s layout.
  • Search box on-click: Now you can control which part is displayed on the instant search widget when your customers click on the search box.

More new tool settings

  • Swatch settings: This feature helps to enrich your filter option displays with images or custom colors instead of default basic ones.
  • Sort by options: Change the label of the sorting order in the Search results & Collection pages and actively add new options based on product attributes such as tag, reviews rating, metafields, etc. 
  • App Integration: A new automatic integration process helps you effortlessly integrate most other Shopify apps within seconds.

App upgrades

  • Better Search analytics algorithm: Apart from counting total searches, we've updated our algorithm to take into consideration more valuable search terms and high-quality suggestions made by your customers, giving you a bigger picture of what your customers might be looking for in your stores.
  • App performance: We have minified our JavaScript and CSS files to give customers a better user experience, and optimized our code for faster execution speed and more efficient memory utilization. As a result, we have managed to achieve shorter Shopify’s page load time. 

V3

Now, we did not stop there. Boost has released one of the biggest upgrade: Boost 3.0 AI Powered (V3). To learn more about what's new, please visit our article here.

Check the version of App Lib your store is using

Checking your theme code can let you know the version of Product Filter & Search that your store is using. 

To find out which version you are using, please follow these steps:

  1. From your Shopify admin, go to Online Store > Themes.
  2. Find the theme you want to check its theme code, and then click Actions (⋯) > Edit code.
  3. In the Layout folder, click theme.liquid file. Please search for these followings to find out which App Lib Version you are using with your store's theme:
    • V1
      • {% include 'bc-sf-filter' %}
    • V2
      • {% render 'boost-pfs' %}<br>
      or 
      {% include 'boost-pfs' %}<br>
      Because of the latest changes in terms of privacy from Shopify. For our latest version ( Boost 3.0: AI Powered), we no longer implement our code directly into Shopify's theme files. Instead, we add it to your theme via App Blocks feature. To learn if your app is installed with our latest version V3. Please follow the instructions below.
    • V3
      • 1
      From Shopify Admin, go to Online Store > Themes > go to Theme editor for the one you'd like to check.
      2
      In the editor left sidebar, select App embeds.
      3
      If you find our app (with Boost logo) in the list of App embeds and option to toggle it ON/OFF. It means the theme you are checking is running Boost's latest version (V3).


If you need any further assisatance, you can contact us at support@boostcommerce.net and we will let you know which version you are using in your Shopify store.

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