Rotozoom Product Filter — User Manual
Lightning-fast AJAX product filtering for WooCommerce. Product Filter lets your shoppers narrow your catalogue by category, price, attributes, stock and rating — with results updating instantly, without reloading the page. It is a direct, zero-dependency replacement for WBW Product Filter.
- Free version: full AJAX filtering, price slider, stock/rating filters, category context, up to 4 active attributes.
- Pro version: unlimited attributes, and full XStore theme compatibility.
- Pro price: €47 / year per site.
For newcomers: what this plugin does
When a shop has more than a handful of products, customers need a way to find what they want quickly. A filter is the panel — usually on the left of the shop page — with checkboxes and sliders like Price, Colour or Brand. As the shopper ticks boxes, the product grid narrows down.
Product Filter adds this panel to your store and makes it instant: the grid updates the moment a box is ticked, with no page reload. It also keeps the chosen filters in the web address (the URL), so a shopper can bookmark or share a filtered view.
Setup
1. Prepare your data
Filters are only as good as your product data, so first make sure your products have:
- Categories assigned (under each product, or Products → Categories).
- Attributes such as Colour, Size, Wattage, Socket (set up under Products → Attributes, then assigned to products).
Tip: keep attribute slugs in plain ASCII letters (for example
socket,wattage). Non-Latin slugs can be mis-encoded in the URL.
2. Place the filter
Add the filter to your shop using the [avs_filter] shortcode. Put it in a widget area (such as a shop sidebar) or directly on a page or category template, depending on your theme. The filter automatically respects the page it sits on — on a category page it filters within that category.
3. Choose which filters to show
In the plugin settings you pick which controls appear — categories, price range, individual attributes, stock status and rating — and the order they appear in.
Feature reference
AJAX filtering with URL sync
Every change to a filter triggers an AJAX request — a background call to the server that returns only the matching products and swaps them into the grid, with no full page reload. The active filters are written into the URL, so:
- The browser Back button works as expected.
- A filtered view can be bookmarked or shared.
- Landing on a filtered URL directly shows the correct, pre-filtered results.
Price range slider
A draggable two-handle slider lets shoppers set a minimum and maximum price. The range adapts to the products currently in view.
Attribute filters
Each WooCommerce attribute can become a filter group (checkboxes). Shoppers can combine several — for example Socket: E27 and Colour temperature: Warm white — to narrow results precisely.
- Free: up to 4 active attribute filters at once.
- Pro: unlimited attribute filters — ideal for technical catalogues with many properties.
Stock, rating and special filters
Built-in filters beyond attributes:
- In stock — hide out-of-stock items.
- Rating — show only products at or above a star rating.
- On sale / featured — surface promotions.
Category page context
When the filter sits on a category archive, it automatically scopes results to that category, so shoppers refine within the section they are browsing rather than across the whole store.
Free vs Pro at a glance
| Feature | Free | Pro |
|---|---|---|
| AJAX filtering with URL sync | ✓ | ✓ |
| Price range slider | ✓ | ✓ |
| Stock, rating & special filters | ✓ | ✓ |
| Category page context | ✓ | ✓ |
| Active attribute filters | up to 4 | unlimited |
| XStore theme compatibility | — | ✓ |
Advanced notes
- XStore compatibility (Pro): XStore renders shop pages with its own markup; Pro includes specific integration so the filter hooks into XStore's product grid and AJAX correctly. On standard/generic themes the filter works without this.
- URL-driven querying: filters modify the main product query, so results are real WooCommerce queries (correct pagination, sorting and counts) rather than a client-side hide/show trick.
- Performance: filtering uses category context to keep queries scoped and fast even on large catalogues.
Troubleshooting
- An attribute isn't offered as a filter — confirm it is a global attribute (under Products → Attributes) and is assigned to products; on Free, remember the 4-attribute limit.
- Filtered URLs look broken or double-encoded — check that attribute slugs are plain ASCII.
- Filter looks unstyled on XStore — XStore needs the Pro integration; connect your Pro licence.
To connect a Pro licence, see Installing and updating plugins.