Description

AddSynapse replaces the default WooCommerce product search with a fast,
hosted live search and AJAX product filters. Indexing and search run on our servers, so
your shop’s database and hosting carry no extra load.

Search

Live search as you type — image, price and in-stock options, in a compact list or a
large panel with product cards and category/brand links.
Typo tolerant — “headphnes” still finds “headphones”; partial words match too.
Synonyms per store, and search by attributes (color, size…), SKU and barcode.
No-results report — see what shoppers didn’t find; add a synonym in one click.
No product disappears — if your catalog exceeds your plan, the most important products
are indexed and the rest are still found by the standard WordPress search.
Works with your theme — attaches to its search field and icon automatically, page
builders included, with CSS selectors as a fallback; or keep your theme’s search look.
Voice search (optional) and Semantic search (beta) (optional, Pro and Business
plans: “Related results” only when a search finds nothing).
Privacy — search history stays in the visitor’s browser; search stats are opt-in.

How the filters work

Place the filters — add one AddSynapse Search — Product filter block or widget per
filter to your shop sidebar, or use a shortcode (see the FAQ). Filters: any product attribute (color,
size…), category (list or tree), brand, and price (min–max).
Shoppers pick values — checkboxes, radio buttons, dropdown or buttons, with counts that
follow the other choices. Different filters narrow together; on a category page they stay
within that category.
The product grid updates — the plugin finds your theme’s product grid (div-based grids
like Woodmart or Flatsome too) and shows the filtered products in its place, with no page
reload; “Clear” brings your theme’s grid back. Prefer a page reload? Switch it in
Settings Product filters. The address bar always holds the filters (share, back button).

Limits: filtered results use the plugin’s own product cards (image, title, price, in-stock
options), not your theme’s. If your plan covers only part of your catalog, filters pause and
your theme shows all products.

Language support

Typo tolerance, partial words, synonyms and attributes work in any language. Filler words and
phrases (“I’m looking for…”) are handled in English, Greek and 15 other European languages.

Built-in Greek support: greeklish Greek (“kreatini” finds “κρεατίνη”) and word forms
(“πρωτεΐνη” also finds “πρωτεΐνης”, “πρωτεΐνες”). Word forms and transliteration are
currently Greek only.

How it works

After you connect, the plugin sends catalog data (title, categories, price, SKU, images —
never customer or order data) to our service through a background queue (Action
Scheduler). Visitor searches go directly to our service with a short-lived token scoped to
your catalog. Details in “External services” below.

Requires a free AddSynapse account

This plugin is a client for a hosted search service; there is no local search engine and
nothing is held back. Click Connect to AddSynapse on the settings page, sign in (or create a
free account) and approve your site — no card, no key to copy. Until you connect, the plugin
sends nothing out, schedules nothing and shows nothing in your store.

The Free plan has no time limit and search is never switched off. It covers a limited number
of products (variations don’t count). Fair-use limits on monthly searches are informational
only — search is never interrupted. Payment problems on a paid plan fall back to the Free plan
limits. The Pro plan can be tried free for 5 days (card required); afterwards the plugin keeps
working on the Free plan. Plans and prices: https://addsynapse.com/product-search.

Requires WooCommerce 8.0 or newer and the PHP mbstring extension.

External Services

This plugin is a client for the hosted AddSynapse search service. AddSynapse is operated by
WebOrange (weborange.gr). The service runs on addsynapse.com hosts; stores
activated before the move may still use the previous weborange.gr hosts (same service, same
operator) until their next token renewal switches them over automatically. Indexing and search run on our servers, so the plugin cannot work without connecting
to the services below. Until you connect to AddSynapse (or enter a license key from an earlier
version), the plugin sends nothing anywhere. Your store’s customer and order data is never
sent. After an administrator clicks “Connect to AddSynapse”, the following is sent (details in
sections 0-2 below):

to AddSynapse, once, in the address of the page that opens: your site’s address and name and
the email address of the administrator who clicked (only to pre-fill sign-in or sign-up — your
account is created by you, on the AddSynapse website);
to AddSynapse, about every hour: your site’s address, version numbers and product count;
to the search service: your published product catalog (no customer or order data) and your
synonyms;
from your visitors’ browsers to the search service: the search terms and filters they use, and —
only if you turn on search statistics — anonymous search and click counts (no cookies, no
visitor identifiers).
AddSynapse account (section 0): terms https://addsynapse.com/terms, privacy https://addsynapse.com/privacy
Search service (sections 1 and 2): terms https://search-api.addsynapse.com/terms, privacy
https://search-api.addsynapse.com/privacy

0. AddSynapse account — app.addsynapse.com and api.addsynapse.com

Your AddSynapse account holds your plan, limits and billing.

Connect (only when an administrator clicks “Connect to AddSynapse”): app.addsynapse.com
opens in a new tab with your site’s address and name, the platform (WooCommerce), the plugin
version and the email address of the administrator who clicked (only to pre-fill sign-in or
sign-up). Your site first asks api.addsynapse.com for the address of that page. While the tab
is open, the settings page asks api.addsynapse.com every few seconds whether you approved
(server to server, with the one-time random request code; only while the request is pending, at most 24 hours). After you
sign in and approve, your site exchanges a one-time code with api.addsynapse.com (server to
server) for its site key and a signing secret, which is stored encrypted in your WordPress
database.
Plan status (about every hour in the background, when you open the plugin’s settings page,
and when you click “Refresh status”): a signed request with your site’s address, the plugin,
WordPress and WooCommerce versions and the number of published products. The response
(signed, verified by the plugin) contains your plan, its limits, the billing state, links to
your account, and the addresses of the search service assigned to your site (sections 1-2).
Disconnect (only when you click it): a signed request so that AddSynapse revokes the keys.

1. AddSynapse Search API — search-api.addsynapse.com

Used by your WordPress site (server to server), authenticated with your license key. Stores
activated before the move may still use the previous address, search-api.weborange.gr (legacy,
same service and operator), until the next token renewal returns the new one.

Connecting the search service (once, right after you connect to AddSynapse, and again
only if it has to be repaired): your store’s domain, its AddSynapse site key and a signed
proof, which the Search API forwards to AddSynapse (api.addsynapse.com) to confirm your site.
The response contains the license key for the search service. Every later request to this
API also carries the site key (X-AddSynapse-Site header).
License activation and token renewal (on activation, then about once every 24 hours):
your license key and your store’s domain. Every request to this API also carries the
plugin’s version number (X-AddSynapse-Plugin header). The response contains a short-lived, read-only
search token and the addresses of the search hosts assigned to your store.
Catalog indexing (when a product is created, updated, trashed or deleted, during a full
rebuild you start, and in a nightly background sync): a list of your published, visible
products — title, categories, brand, description excerpt, price, SKU/barcodes, attributes
(e.g. color/size), stock status, number of sales and creation date (used only to keep your
most important products when the catalog is larger than your plan), image URLs and product URL. Deleted or hidden products are
sent as a list of product IDs to remove.
Settings and synonyms (when you save settings or edit synonyms): your synonym groups
and your site’s language code (e.g. “el”), also sent on license activation.
Statistics (when you open the Stats or Status tab): a request for your store’s search
statistics and plan usage.
Suggestions (when you ask for synonym suggestions on the Stats tab): the search term
you picked.
Billing portal link (sites with a license key from earlier versions, only when you click
“Manage subscription & invoices”): a request for a one-time link to your Stripe customer
portal (see Stripe below).
Search statistics beacon — optional, off by default; only if you tick it under Settings Behavior Search statistics. From the
visitor’s browser, after each search and result click, sent to the /v1/track endpoint:
your store ID, the search term, the number of results, and the ID of the product that was
clicked. When the plugin removed a filler phrase from the search (see “Filler phrases”
below), the phrase as the visitor typed or spoke it is sent too (at most 200 characters),
so that searches like “do you have …” that still find nothing can improve the lists. In the
“Theme’s search look” mode your site’s server sends it, once per search results page. The plugin adds no cookie or visitor identifier to it. As with any web request,
the visitor’s browser connects from an IP address; the statistics service does not store IP
addresses or user agents with these events. Switching it off stops collection for pages
loaded after you save: tabs that were already open, or pages served from a page cache, may
keep sending until they are reloaded or the cache expires. Your choice is also sent to the
service when you save the settings (and on activation), and from then on the service
ignores and does not store events from stores that have it switched off. Statistics
collected earlier stay in the Stats tab until they expire under the retention period in
the privacy policy.
Semantic search (beta) — optional, off by default, Pro and Business plans; only if you
tick it under Settings Behavior Semantic search (beta). No new third party is involved: the setting
(on/off) is sent with your settings, and while it is on the search service passes the product
texts it already receives for indexing (title, categories, brand, start of the description) to
AddSynapse’s own embedding service, run by the same operator on our servers in the EU, to
compute a “meaning” vector per product. When a visitor’s search finds no
products, the same search term is also turned into such a vector by that service to look for
related products (see section 2). Nothing is sent to other companies. Switching it off removes
these vectors from your search index. Same terms and privacy policy as the search service.

The activation response may assign your store to a different node; any API, search or
statistics address the server returns there is a host on addsynapse.com (or, legacy, weborange.gr),
operated by us under the same terms and privacy policy.

2. AddSynapse search engine — q.addsynapse.com

Used directly by your visitors’ browsers while they search. The address is the one the Search
API assigns to your store on activation and token renewal: q.addsynapse.com, or, for stores
activated before the move, the previous address q.weborange.gr (same service, same
operator) until the next token renewal switches them over automatically. When a visitor types in the
search field or uses a product filter, the search term and the selected filters are sent to
this host together with the short-lived, read-only token, which only allows searching your
own catalog. Nothing else is sent; search history stays in the visitor’s browser
(localStorage) and is never uploaded.

In the “Theme’s search look” mode your site’s server sends this request (same term and
token) instead of the visitor’s browser, and caches results for about a minute.

If Semantic search (beta) is on and a search finds no products, one more request with the
same search term and token is sent to this host to look for related products; the search
engine has the term turned into a meaning vector by AddSynapse’s own embedding service (see
section 1). Nothing else is sent.

If a page comes from a page cache with an expired token, the visitor’s browser asks your own
site for a fresh one (admin-ajax.php, action addsynapse_search_token). That request stays on your
WordPress; your site then renews the token with the Search API as described in section 1.

When your plan covers only part of your catalog, the visitor’s browser also asks your own
site (admin-ajax.php, action addsynapse_search_native) for products of the standard
WordPress search that are not in the smart results. That request stays on your WordPress;
nothing is sent to AddSynapse.

3. Browser speech recognition — voice search (optional, off by default)

Only if you enable Settings Behavior Voice search. The plugin itself sends nothing for
this feature, and nothing reaches our servers: it only asks the visitor’s browser to recognize
speech (the browser’s built-in Web Speech API). Audio is captured only after a visitor presses
the microphone button and allows microphone access; the recognized text is then placed in the
search field and searched like typed text (see section 2).

Depending on the browser, the recording may be sent to the browser vendor’s speech service
for recognition: Chrome sends it to Google, Edge to Microsoft, and Safari may use Apple’s
servers or recognize speech on the device. That processing is done by the browser vendor
under its own terms, not by this plugin:

Google privacy policy: https://policies.google.com/privacy
Microsoft privacy statement: https://privacy.microsoft.com/privacystatement
Apple privacy policy: https://www.apple.com/legal/privacy/

4. Stripe — billing (only for paid plans)

Payments are handled by Stripe, Inc. The plugin itself never sends any data to Stripe:

Sites connected to AddSynapse: “Manage / Upgrade on AddSynapse” opens your AddSynapse
account (app.addsynapse.com), where paid plans are bought and managed through Stripe.
Sites with a license key from earlier versions: the “Upgrade” / pricing links open our pricing page (https://search-api.addsynapse.com/pricing)
with your store’s domain; choosing a paid plan there sends you to Stripe Checkout, where
you enter your email and payment details directly with Stripe.
“Manage subscription & invoices” redirects you to the Stripe customer portal
(billing.stripe.com) for your store, to change or cancel your plan and download invoices.

Stripe terms: https://stripe.com/legal/consumer
Stripe privacy policy: https://stripe.com/privacy

Screenshots

Advanced search panel: product cards with images, prices and sale badges, plus the matching categories and brands with counts, updating as you type.

Typo tolerance: "hoddie" still finds every hoodie. — Advanced search panel: product cards with images, prices and sale badges, plus the matching categories and brands with counts, updating as you type.

Installation

Upload the addsynapse-search-filter folder to /wp-content/plugins/, or install it directly from “Plugins Add New” inside WordPress.
Activate the plugin from the “Plugins” menu. It requires an active WooCommerce (8.0 or newer) and the PHP “mbstring” extension — if either is missing, the plugin shows a notice explaining what to do and stays inactive until it is fixed. Nothing is sent anywhere until you connect.
Go to AddSynapse Search & Filter Settings and click “Connect to AddSynapse”. Sign in to AddSynapse (or create a free account) and approve your site — you come back to the settings page with the Free plan active, nothing to copy. It’s free forever for small catalogs, no card required. Sites with a license key from an earlier version can keep it (“I already have a license key”) or connect — connecting keeps the existing index.
Click “Rebuild index” to build the search index from your existing catalog. It runs in small batches from your browser, while your live site keeps working normally.
Your store’s search field is taken over automatically. In Settings Search mode you can instead keep your theme’s own search look (results from our engine) or place the search box manually; for a custom theme you can set CSS selectors for the search field and search icon.

FAQ

Can I filter products by attribute, not just search?

Yes. Add one AddSynapse Search — Product filter widget or block per filter: any product
attribute (colour, size, material…), category, brand, or price as a min–max range. Each one has
its own title, display style (checkboxes, radio buttons, dropdown or buttons), number of values
shown (default in Settings Product filters Values per filter, most common first), optional
counts and an optional search box for long lists. When several values of one filter are
ticked, products can match any of them (red or blue) or all of them (waterproof and windproof);
different filters always narrow together. Widgets and blocks hide themselves on product, cart, checkout
and account pages, where there is no list to filter.

On shop and category pages the filtered results replace the product list your theme renders,
so there is nothing to edit in your template. On a category page the filters automatically
stay within that category (and its subcategories).

Which shortcodes and options are there?

[addsynapse_search_filter attribute="Colour"] — one filter. Options: title,
style=”checkbox|radio|select|buttons”, limit, counts="yes|no", search="yes|no",
match=”any|all”, category, ajax="yes|no", active_filters="yes|no" (removable tags of
the active filters), and for categories category_display="list|tree",
category_depth=”all|top|children_of_current”. Use attribute="categories", "brand" or
“price” for those filters.
[addsynapse_search_products] — a product grid of its own, for a page without a theme
product list. Options: per_page, layout="grid|list", sort="price_asc|price_desc",
category, ajax.
[addsynapse_search_filters] — category, brand, price and all indexed attributes plus the
grid, in one line. Options: attributes="Colour,Size" (order = display order), style,
show=”filters|products|both”, and the grid options above.

My theme’s product list doesn’t change when I filter. What do I do?

The plugin looks for your theme’s product list automatically: first the selector in
Settings Product filters Product list selector (default
ul.wc-block-product-template, ul.products), then the main product loop of themes that use
div grids (such as Woodmart or Flatsome). If your theme uses something unusual, enter the CSS
selector of its product list there. Related products, upsells and carousels are never touched.

How do the filters look on mobile?

The filter widgets appear wherever your theme puts its sidebar on small screens (usually
below or above the products). The plugin’s own grid shows two products per row on phones, and
the [addsynapse_search_filters] layout stacks filters above products. There is no separate
off-canvas filter drawer.

Can the category filter show subcategories under their parent?

Yes. In the Category filter pick Categories shown as Tree: subcategories sit under their
parent, which opens and closes with a small arrow, and a parent’s count includes its
subcategories. Ticking a parent shows the products of all its subcategories; ticking a
subcategory under a ticked parent narrows to that subcategory. Category levels can limit the
list to the top level, or to the subcategories of the category being viewed. Shortcode:
[addsynapse_search_filter attribute=”categories” category_display=”tree” category_depth=”top”].

Do the filters reload the page?

No, by default they update in place (AJAX), and the address bar is kept in sync so the back
button, bookmarks and shared links work. If your theme or another plugin needs a full page
load, choose Normal (page reload with URL parameters) under Settings Product filters
How filters apply; a shortcode’s ajax="yes" or ajax="no" overrides this on one page.
While filters are active, the theme’s result count, sorting dropdown and pagination are hidden,
since they would describe the unfiltered list; “Load more” pages through the filtered results.

Do I need to change anything in my theme?

No, in most cases. The search field is detected and taken over automatically in JavaScript,
regardless of your theme or page builder, and the search icons of popular themes open our panel
instead of the theme’s. If needed, you can manually set CSS selectors in the settings.

What are the three search modes?

Choose in Settings Search mode:

Our search panel (default): our panel opens from your theme’s search field and its
search icon — the theme’s own search panel never opens, so visitors never see two. The search
icons of popular themes are recognised automatically (Woodmart, Astra and others); for any
other theme you can enter the icon’s CSS selector. Keeps the Simple/Advanced layout, voice
search, recent and popular searches and the category/brand links.
Theme’s search look: your theme’s search box, live search and results page stay exactly
as they are, but the results come from our engine (typo tolerance, synonyms, relevance
order, and Greek word forms and greeklish). Works on the product search results page and in supported theme live searches
(e.g. Woodmart). Our panel, the Advanced layout and voice search are not used in this mode.
Manual: nothing is added automatically — place the search box yourself with the block or
the [addsynapse_search] shortcode.

My theme has its own search design. Can I keep it?

Yes — choose Theme’s search look (see above). Only the results come from our engine.

Does it work without an AddSynapse account?

No — the plugin is a client for a hosted service, so your site has to be connected (or use a
license key from an earlier version). Connecting takes one click on the settings page and the
Free plan is free forever for small catalogs, no card required, and nothing ever switches
itself off. If your catalog grows past the free plan’s product limit, smart search covers your
most important products and the rest are found by the standard WordPress search; a paid plan
indexes the whole catalog. Current limits: https://addsynapse.com/product-search.

Is there a free trial of the paid plan?

Yes, optionally: a 5-day free trial of the Pro plan, started from your AddSynapse account (a card
is required; you can cancel anytime there, and we email you 2 days before the trial ends). During
the trial your whole catalog is indexed and Semantic search is available. If you cancel or don’t
continue, nothing is charged and the plugin keeps working on the Free plan — it is never
switched off. The Free plan itself is not a trial and never expires.

Can I test on a local or development site?

Yes. You can test on a local install (localhost, *.local, *.test, *.ddev.site, a private IP
address — any port, http or https): “Connect to AddSynapse” creates a free development site,
for testing. For your live shop, connect from its public https address (public addresses must
use https without a port number).

Where do I upgrade or see my invoices?

In your AddSynapse account: click “Manage / Upgrade on AddSynapse” on the settings page. The
plugin picks up a plan change automatically (within about an hour, or immediately with
“Refresh status”). If a payment fails, search keeps working with the Free plan limits.

What do the product and record limits mean?

Each plan has two limits, both shown on the “Status” tab: a product limit (how many of
your products get indexed) and a record limit (how many entries the search index holds).
Neither limit ever expires and neither limit is a search quota. Variations never count toward
the product limit. Search volume is covered by fair-use limits (see the pricing page): they
never interrupt or slow down search — if a store goes well beyond them, we get in touch.

We count products because that’s what a shop owner understands. We also count records
because “exact variation search” — an optional setting that indexes every color/size
combination as its own entry, so an out-of-stock combination never shows up as available —
would otherwise let a catalogue with unusually many variations use the resources of many
regular stores for the same price. The record limit is generous (several times your product limit), and
with exact variation search off, records are always equal to your product count.

If either limit is reached, search keeps working normally: the index keeps your most
important products (best sellers first, in-stock before out-of-stock, then the newest), and
your other products are still found by the standard WordPress search, listed after the smart
results. Product filters pause meanwhile, so category pages keep showing every product with
your theme’s own product grid. You’ll see a clear notice
about this on the “Status” tab, with two ways forward: upgrade your plan, or turn off
exact variation search to keep everything indexed within your current plan.

What data does the plugin send outside my store?

Catalog data (title, category, price, SKU, images, etc.), your visitors’ search terms (to
return results), your site’s address, versions and product count for the plan check with
AddSynapse, and — only if you turn them on — anonymous search stats and Semantic search (beta), which is
processed by AddSynapse’s own embedding service (no third party). If you enable voice search, the visitor’s own
browser may send the spoken audio to its vendor’s speech service (Google, Microsoft or Apple);
the plugin itself does not. Never customer or order data. See the “External
services” section above for details.

What happens to my visitors’ search history?

It stays exclusively in each visitor’s browser (localStorage). It’s never uploaded to our
servers and never linked to any person.

Are out-of-stock and hidden products shown?

Search and autocomplete follow the plugin’s “Out of stock” setting: “Hide” removes them,
“Show last” keeps them at the end. Filtered product grids (and their counts) hide them if
either the plugin is set to “Hide” or WooCommerce’s own “Hide out of stock items from the
catalog” is enabled. WooCommerce catalog visibility is respected: “Shop only” products
appear in filtered grids but not in search, “Search results only” products the other way
round, and hidden products nowhere.

Which price is shown in search results and filters?

The index holds one public price per product: the price an anonymous visitor sees in your
shop, using your “Display prices in the shop” tax setting and your store’s base location.
Products without a price show no price (a price of 0 is shown as free). Variable products
show their lowest price. Prices that depend on the customer’s own country, on a
multi-currency plugin, on the user’s role or on dynamic-pricing rules are not reflected in
search results — the product page always shows the exact price.

What happens if my paid subscription ends or a payment fails?

Search keeps working: your site moves to the Free plan limits. After a grace period the index
keeps your most important products up to the free limit (best sellers first), and your other
products are still found by the standard WordPress search. Renewing the subscription restores
the paid limits, and the plugin re-sends the rest of your catalog automatically. Search is switched off only if you disconnect the site, or if the site is
suspended in your AddSynapse account.

Does it support languages other than Greek?

Yes. Typo tolerance, partial-word matching, synonyms and attribute search work with any
language in your catalog, and filler words and request phrases are handled in English, Greek
and 15 other European languages. Word-form matching (stemming) and greeklish Greek
transliteration are currently available for Greek only; other languages are matched by whole
and partial words, without word-form rules.

Filler phrases: what happens to “I’m looking for …”?

Shoppers often type (or say) a whole sentence: “I’m looking for red shoes please”,
“μήπως έχετε παζλ;”. The plugin removes such request and politeness phrases from the
start and the end of the search before sending it — “red shoes”, “παζλ” — and never
touches words in the middle (“case for iphone” stays as it is). The search field keeps what
the shopper wrote; only the search uses the shorter text. If nothing would be left (“I need”),
the original text is searched.

The phrase lists are small JSON files in assets/data/fillers/ (Greek with accent-less and
greeklish variants, English, and 15 other EU languages). Only the list for the page’s
language (WPML, Polylang or the site language) is loaded; for voice search, the list for the
speech-recognition language. They are our own lists, released under the plugin’s GPL
licence. Developers can change them with the addsynapse_search_query_fillers filter.

The search service also ignores a short, curated list of words such as “the”, “for”, “και”,
“για” in the store’s language (never negations like “without” / “χωρίς”). For that it
receives your site’s language code on activation and when you save settings.

Can developers add their own data to the index?

Yes: the addsynapse_search_product_document filter lets you add keys under $doc['custom'],
which your result templates can show. Anything under custom is public — visitors’
browsers read it straight from the search service — so never put data there that is not meant
for the shop front (cost prices, supplier codes, customer data). Only display fields and
custom are returned to browsers; everything else in the index is used for searching and
filtering only.

Reviews

There are no reviews for this plugin.

Contributors & Developers

“AddSynapse – Live Product Search & Filters for WooCommerce” is open source software. The following people have contributed to this plugin.

AddSynapse

Translate “AddSynapse – Live Product Search & Filters for WooCommerce” into your language.

Interested in development?

Browse the code, check out the SVN repository, or subscribe to the development log by RSS.

Changelog

0.8.3

Change: new plugin name, “AddSynapse – Live Product Search & Filters for WooCommerce”. Same
plugin, slug, settings and menu (“AddSynapse Search & Filter”).
Fix: Disconnect now also cancels the plugin’s scheduled background tasks.
Fix: the Plugins screen never contacts the service (the “Settings” link uses local state only).
Fix: uninstalling while WooCommerce is inactive now also removes the plugin’s scheduled tasks.
Fix: with exact variation search, simple products were missing from the filter options and counts.
Fix: click-through rates on the Stats tab were shown 100 times too small (e.g. “0.5%” instead of “53%”).

0.8.2

Fix: when the plugin loaded before WooCommerce (the default alphabetical order), the WooCommerce
check could run too early and leave the plugin inactive. The check now runs only after all
plugins have loaded and is never cached.

0.8.1

Fix: activation no longer depends on the order in which plugins are activated. WooCommerce
(and the PHP mbstring extension) are checked every time the plugin loads; if something is
missing, a notice explains it and the plugin stays inactive instead of blocking activation.
Change: nothing is scheduled in the background until you connect your store.
Change: a new installation shows a clear “Connect to AddSynapse to start” message on every tab
instead of a technical error; removed unused sign-up code from earlier versions.

0.8.0

New: no product disappears from search when your catalog is bigger than your plan. Smart search
keeps your most important products (best sellers first, then in stock, then newest) and the rest
are found by the standard WordPress search, listed after the smart results — in the search panel
and on your theme’s search results page. Product filters pause in that case, so category pages
keep showing every product.
New: the Status and Settings tabs show how many of your products smart search covers, with a
link to the Pro plan (and to its optional 5-day free trial when your AddSynapse account offers it).
Change: Semantic search (beta) is now part of the Pro and Business plans (and the Pro trial).
On the Free plan the setting is shown switched off.

0.7.1

Improved: Semantic search (beta) now finds related products when shoppers type in Greek on a
store whose catalog is in another language (for example English). Fewer, more relevant related
results are shown in that case.

0.7.0

New: Semantic search (beta), optional and off by default, free on all plans. When a search finds
nothing, the plugin looks once for products with a similar meaning and shows them under
“Related results” — in the Simple and Advanced layouts, on phones, and on your theme’s search
results page in the “Theme’s search look” mode. Normal searches are unchanged and make no extra
request. The Status tab shows when your catalog is ready for it.

0.6.7

Readme: contributors list corrected.

0.6.6

The Status and Settings tabs show the new Business plan by name. Plan limits keep coming from
the search service, so they always match your current plan.

0.6.5

New: the Category filter can show categories as a tree (subcategories under their parent,
with an open/close arrow and counts that include subcategories), only the top level, or only
the subcategories of the category being viewed. Available in the widget, the block and the
shortcode (category_display, category_depth). Existing filters look exactly as before.

0.6.4

Friendlier messages for development-site limits: a clear message (with a link to the Sites page
of the AddSynapse portal) when your account already has 5 development sites, and an explanation
before you connect when the site address contains a username/password or the WordPress Address
and Site Address use a different host or port.

0.6.3

Code quality and security hardening for the WordPress.org review.
New: local and development installs (localhost, *.local, *.test, *.ddev.site, private IP
addresses) can be connected as a free development site for testing; the settings page says
so before you connect, and shows a “Development site” badge once connected.
New: if the search service had to recreate your search index (for example after a long period
of inactivity), the plugin re-sends your settings and rebuilds the index by itself in the
background; the Status tab says so while it runs.
Removed the compatibility layer for the pre-release “WebOrange Search” plugin.

0.6.2

New: a small “✕ Clear filters” link above the filters whenever a filter is active, and a “✕ Clear”
link on each filter that has a selection. Both bring back the theme’s product list exactly as it was.
New (optional, off by default): show the active filters above the products as small tags, each
with ✕ to remove it — “Show the active filters…” in the filter widget/block, or
active_filters=”yes” in the shortcodes.

0.6.1

Fix: filters now update the product list in themes whose shop grid is not a ul.products list
(Woodmart, Flatsome, Porto and others) — the theme’s product grid is detected automatically.
The “Product list selector” setting still overrides the detection.
Clearing the filters brings back the theme’s own product list exactly as it was (quick view,
wishlist and lazy-loaded images keep working).
Woodmart AJAX shop: filters keep working after the theme loads a new page, sorting or
category without reloading; its pagination, products-per-page and view switcher are hidden
while filtering.
Fix: after clearing the filters, the theme’s pagination and sorting no longer bring back
the previous filter.
Filtered products show in two columns on phones.

0.6.0

New: Search mode setting — Our search panel, Theme’s search look or Manual.
Our search panel: clicking the theme’s search icon (Woodmart full-screen search, Astra and
other popular themes, or your own CSS selector) now opens only our panel — never the theme’s
panel underneath it.
Theme’s search look: the theme’s own search box, live search (Woodmart) and product search
results page keep their design, with results and relevance order from our engine.
The previous “Display mode” setting is carried over automatically (Automatic Our search
panel, Manual CSS selector Our search panel with that selector, Off Manual).
Fix: tapping the search field inside the full-screen mobile panel no longer closes it.

0.5.4

Fix: the search field works in themes that keep focus inside their own search panel
(e.g. Woodmart full-screen search): you can click and type again, the theme’s own AJAX search
no longer opens a second dropdown, and Enter / “View all” keep the theme’s product search.

0.5.3

Fix: the “plan limit reached” message is now shown entirely in your admin language (it could mix
English and your site’s language), and states clearly that only new products are held back while
existing products keep updating and stay searchable. It includes a link to manage or upgrade your plan.

0.5.2

Fix: editing a variable product now updates all its variations in search. A change saved
while the product was still being sent to the index (for example right after saving its
variations) could be dropped, so search kept showing the old title.
Fix: products with more than 100 variations are sent in batches and update correctly.
Fix: title, slug, category and brand changes made by other plugins (importers, translation
or bulk-edit tools) without going through WooCommerce are now picked up as well.
Fix: turning a simple product into a variable one no longer leaves its old entry in search.
Note: results that are already out of date are corrected by saving the product again, or by
a full re-index (Status tab, “Run now”).

0.5.1

Change: “Connect to AddSynapse” opens AddSynapse in a new tab. The settings page shows a
waiting panel and notices the approval by itself (also if you approve on another device or
come back later), with “Open again” and “Cancel”.
New: clear messages before leaving WordPress when the site cannot be connected (local
address, IP address, port number or no https), and friendly messages for every reason
AddSynapse can refuse a connection.
Fix: a second click while a connection is pending reopens the same request instead of
appearing to do nothing; the button shows “Opening AddSynapse…” and cannot be double-clicked.
Fix: connection requests stay valid for 24 hours (signing up and confirming your email could
take longer than 15 minutes), and an unreachable AddSynapse is reported after 8 seconds instead of 20.

0.5.0

New: Connect to AddSynapse — one click on the settings page connects your site to your
AddSynapse account (sign in or create a free account, approve the site). The Free plan starts
right away; no email form, no key to copy.
New: the settings page shows your plan, product limit, fair-use volume and billing state from
your AddSynapse account, with “Manage / Upgrade on AddSynapse”, “Refresh status” and
“Disconnect”. The status is checked about every hour.
New: the search service addresses are assigned by your AddSynapse account (no fixed hosts in
the plugin).
Change: payment problems never switch search off — the Free plan limits apply until they are
resolved.
Transition: sites with a license key from an earlier version keep working unchanged;
connecting them to AddSynapse is recommended and keeps the existing search index.
Security: every answer from AddSynapse is signature-checked; the signing secret is stored
encrypted.

0.4.2 and earlier

Pre-release versions, never published on WordPress.org.

Description

Search

How the filters work

Language support

How it works

Requires a free AddSynapse account

External Services

0. AddSynapse account — app.addsynapse.com and api.addsynapse.com

1. AddSynapse Search API — search-api.addsynapse.com

2. AddSynapse search engine — q.addsynapse.com

3. Browser speech recognition — voice search (optional, off by default)

4. Stripe — billing (only for paid plans)

Screenshots

Installation

FAQ

Can I filter products by attribute, not just search?

Which shortcodes and options are there?

My theme’s product list doesn’t change when I filter. What do I do?

How do the filters look on mobile?

Can the category filter show subcategories under their parent?

Do the filters reload the page?

Do I need to change anything in my theme?

What are the three search modes?

My theme has its own search design. Can I keep it?

Does it work without an AddSynapse account?

Is there a free trial of the paid plan?

Can I test on a local or development site?

Where do I upgrade or see my invoices?

What do the product and record limits mean?

What data does the plugin send outside my store?

What happens to my visitors’ search history?

Are out-of-stock and hidden products shown?

Which price is shown in search results and filters?

What happens if my paid subscription ends or a payment fails?

Does it support languages other than Greek?

Filler phrases: what happens to “I’m looking for …”?

Can developers add their own data to the index?