Description
Glance Live Search transforms your WooCommerce store’s search experience. The moment a customer starts typing, matching products appear instantly — by name, SKU, or category — without any page reload.
Stop losing sales to a slow, frustrating search. Give shoppers the fast, fluid experience they expect.
Why Glance Live Search?
- Instant results — powered by optimized WC_AJAX queries, results appear in milliseconds
- Finds everything — searches product titles, SKUs, descriptions, excerpts, categories, and tags
- Beautiful by default — design presets + full Custom mode to match any brand
- Smart caching — client-side cache + server-side object cache (Redis / Memcached compatible)
- Mobile-first — full-screen overlay with safe area support for notched phones
- Search history — recent searches saved locally and displayed on focus
- Fully accessible — ARIA combobox, keyboard navigation, WCAG 2.4.3 focus management
- Extensible — 15+ PHP hooks for developers
- Data-driven — analytics dashboard with top keywords and zero-results tracking
- Theme-proof — defensive CSS with dedicated integrations for Shoptimizer, Astra, and Kadence
Free Features
- Instant AJAX live search by title and SKU
- Search in product descriptions and short descriptions (optional)
- Product tag search results
- Up to 5 results per query with “View all results” link
- Search history displayed on focus (configurable, 1–20 items)
- Client-side multi-term cache (5-minute TTL)
- Full-screen mobile overlay with configurable breakpoint
- 2 design presets: Sharp and Clean
- Configurable search delay, minimum characters, and placeholder text
- Search button (icon or text) — inside or outside the bar
- Text button switches to icon automatically on mobile
- Analytics dashboard — top keywords over 7 days
- Shortcode
[glance_search], WordPress widget, Gutenberg block, Elementor widget - Full Site Editing (FSE) block theme support
- 15+ PHP filter hooks for developers
- WC_AJAX endpoint for faster responses
- Object cache with automatic invalidation on product changes
- Dedicated theme integrations (Shoptimizer, Astra, Kadence)
Pro Features
- Up to 50 results per search
- 4 design presets — Sharp, Clean, Pill, and fully Custom
- Full color customization — bar, border, text, placeholder, button
- Category filter in the search bar
- Variation search — find products by attribute values (color, size, etc.)
- Price range and in-stock filters
- Show SKU, rating, and category count in results
- Upsell recommendations below search results
- CTR / click tracking
- Advanced analytics — 7 / 14 / 30 / 90-day views, hourly breakdown, CSV export
- WPML and Polylang multilingual support
- Priority support
Screenshots
Search bar with live results dropdown 
Admin settings — Behavior tab 
Admin settings — Search Bar design tab 
Admin settings — Analytics dashboard 
Mobile overlay — full-screen search on small screens 
Blocks
This plugin provides 1 block.
- Glance Live Search WooCommerce live product search with AJAX — title, SKU and category support.
Installation
- Upload the
glance-live-searchfolder to/wp-content/plugins/. - Activate the plugin through the Plugins menu.
- Make sure WooCommerce is installed and active.
- Go to WooCommerce Glance Search to configure.
- Add the search bar using the
[glance_search]shortcode, the WordPress widget, the Gutenberg block, or the Elementor widget.
Shoptimizer users: go to Customize Header Display the search and select Glance Live Search.
FAQ
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Does this plugin require WooCommerce?
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Yes. Glance Live Search is built exclusively for WooCommerce product catalogs.
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How do I add the search bar to my site?
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Use the
[glance_search]shortcode, the Glance Live Search widget (Appearance Widgets), the Gutenberg block, or the Elementor widget. -
Can I customize the look?
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Yes. Choose a preset (Sharp, Clean, Pill, or Custom in Pro) and adjust colors, borders, radius, and height from the Search Bar settings tab.
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Will it slow down my site?
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No. Assets load only where the search bar is present. CSS and JS are minified in production. Searches are cached via the WordPress object cache and invalidated automatically when products change.
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Does it work with WPML / Polylang?
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Yes. Results are automatically filtered to the active language.
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Is it accessible?
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Yes. Full ARIA combobox pattern, keyboard navigation (Arrow keys, Enter, Escape, Tab), focus trap on mobile, and
prefers-reduced-motionsupport. -
I have both Free and Pro installed — what happens?
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The Pro automatically deactivates the Free. No conflict, no manual action needed.
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Does it work with Shoptimizer / CommerceKit?
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Yes. Dedicated integration with Shoptimizer’s Customizer. CommerceKit AJAX Search is automatically disabled when Glance is active.
Reviews
There are no reviews for this plugin.
Contributors & Developers
“Glance Live Search” is open source software. The following people have contributed to this plugin.
Contributors
Translate “Glance Live Search” into your language.
Interested in development?
Browse the code, check out the SVN repository, or subscribe to the development log by RSS.
Changelog
1.4.0
- New: FULLTEXT search support with automatic index detection (large catalog performance boost)
- New: Full Site Editing (FSE) block theme support
- New: object cache (Redis / Memcached) with wp_cache_flush_group invalidation (WP 6.1+)
- New: automatic cache invalidation on product create, update, delete, and stock change
- New: text button switches to icon on mobile
- New: Pro/Free dual-activation guard with automatic deactivation and admin notice
- New: body-offset awareness for dropdown positioning (Elementor, Divi compatibility)
- Improved: minified CSS/JS loaded in production via SCRIPT_DEBUG detection
- Improved: shortcode guarantees asset loading via ensure_assets() in late-rendering contexts
- Improved: FULLTEXT boolean operators escaped from user input
- Improved: search cache stores total_found — no duplicate COUNT query on cache hit
- Improved: CSV export streams in 1000-row chunks (prevents out-of-memory)
- Improved: CSV export includes UTF-8 BOM for Excel Windows
- Improved: max_results server-side cap (1–50)
- Improved: is_product() added to asset detection
- Improved: ARIA attributes on mobile overlay input
- Improved: ArrowUp from no selection selects last result
- Improved: Tab key closes dropdown
- Improved: network error fallback message always shown
- Improved: focus restored on mobile overlay close
- Improved: prefers-reduced-motion covers admin animations
- Improved: unique form IDs for multi-instance outside-button mode
- Improved: hook naming harmonized to slash format with backward-compatible aliases
- Improved: @since docblocks on all public methods
- Improved: defensive CSS protects layout against theme overrides
- Improved: CommerceKit AJAX Search neutralized when Glance is active on Shoptimizer
- Removed: Modal display mode
- Removed: Inline display mode
- Fix: search bar unstyled on homepage — ensure_assets() enqueues in theme header context
- Fix: WC_AJAX requests not loading search engine — $_GET[‘wc-ajax’] detection added
- Fix: Pro/Free simultaneous activation fatal error — GLS_PRO_ACTIVE sentinel constant
- Fix: Free version color and result display options not locked behind Pro gate
1.3.0
- New: client-side multi-term cache (5-minute TTL)
- New: “View all results” link with total product count
- New: search history with localStorage and clear button
- New: full-screen mobile overlay with configurable breakpoint and safe area support
- New: search in descriptions and short descriptions
- New: product tag search results
- New: WC_AJAX endpoints (faster responses)
- New: 10 PHP filter hooks for developers
- New: Gutenberg block and Elementor widget
- Improved: analytics fire only on network requests
- Improved: XSS protection on history items
- Fix: mobile overlay body scroll lock
- Fix: WC_AJAX class existence check
1.2.0
- Added CTR / click tracking and upsell recommendations
- Added design presets: Sharp, Clean, Pill
- Added category search results
- Improved rate limiting and cache key (includes filters + language)
- Added DB migration system
1.1.0
- Added search analytics dashboard
- Added Polylang / WPML language support
- Added price and in-stock filters
1.0.0
- Initial release