Glance Live Search – WooCommerce AJAX Product Search

A shopper types the plural. Your catalog is written in the singular. The search returns nothing, and the sale is gone.

On a French-language store this is the single most common way a WooCommerce search comes back empty – “chaussures” failing to find “Chaussure”, “chevaux” failing to find “Cheval”. Glance Live Search treats them as the same word, irregular plurals included.

The rest is what you would expect from a live search, built carefully. Results appear as fast as someone can type, matched on name, SKU or category, with no page reload. A search that finds nothing offers the closest term instead of a dead end. Colors, corners and height follow your brand. And the whole thing adds under 36 KB to your storefront.

Why Glance Live Search?

• Understands plurals – singular and plural are one word on a French store, irregular ones included, and words that only look plural are left alone: prix stays prix, souris stays souris
• Instant results – matching products appear as fast as your customers can type
• Finds everything – searches product titles, SKUs, descriptions, excerpts and categories
• Beautiful by default – design presets + full Custom mode to match any brand
• Stays fast under load – recent searches are remembered, so a term someone has just typed is answered immediately
• Made for phones – the search takes over the screen, and never hides behind a notch
• Search history – recent searches saved locally and displayed on focus
• Usable by everyone – works entirely from the keyboard, and screen readers announce the results properly
• Built to be adapted – 31 documented extension points, listed at the end of this page
• See what shoppers look for – the terms they search, the ones that find nothing, and the ones that lead to a click
• Fits your theme – drops into any theme through the shortcode, widget or block, with dedicated adjustments for Shoptimizer, Astra and Kadence

Free Features

• Instant live search by product name and SKU
• Plurals understood on French-language stores, including irregular ones
• Optional search index for large catalogs, built in one click and reversible
• Search in product descriptions and short descriptions (optional)
• Up to 100 results per search, with a “View all results” link
• Search history displayed on focus (configurable, 1–20 items)
• Recent searches are reused, so repeating one is instant
• 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
• Works with block themes and the site editor
• Results update on their own when you add, edit or remove a product
• Dedicated adjustments for Shoptimizer, Astra and Kadence; works with any other theme through the shortcode, widget or block

Pro Features

• Spelling correction – a search that finds nothing offers the closest matching term instead of a dead end
• Price ranges – three brackets worked out from your own catalog, offered under the bar
• In-stock only – hide out-of-stock products from live 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.)
• Show SKU, rating, and category count in results
• Categories in search results
• Upsell recommendations below search results
• Click tracking – see which results shoppers actually open
• Advanced analytics – 7, 14, 30 and 90-day views, success rate for each search term, and CSV export
• Priority support

Learn more

Pricing, screenshots and documentation: www.glancelivesearch.com

For Developers

Glance exposes 31 extension points. They follow one naming rule — area then thing, separated by slashes — for filters and actions alike. The four names without a slash are kept for backward compatibility only and will be removed in a future release.

The search itself

• glse/search/phrase — the term, before anything is done with it. ( string $term )
• glse/search/min_chars — how many characters before a search fires. ( int $min, string $term )
• glse/search/filters — category, stock and price filters. ( array $filters, string $term )
• glse/search/query_args — the SQL pieces, just before they are assembled: join, where, params, order. ( array $args, string $term, array $filters, int $limit )
• glse/search/results — the formatted results. ( array $results, string $term )
• glse/results/product_data — one product row. ( array $data, WC_Product $product, string $term )
• glse/search/categories — matching categories. ( array $categories, string $term )
• glse/search/after — action, fired once a search is done. ( string $term, array $results, int $ms, string $category )

Language

• glse/search/french_morphology — whether French plural rules apply. Decided from the site language. ( bool $applies, string $locale )
• glse/search/word_variants — the forms a word is looked up under. The typed word always comes first. ( array $forms, string $word )

Index and performance

• glse/search/use_fulltext — whether the fast index drives this search. A guard on short words may still turn it off afterwards. ( bool $use, string $term )
• glse/search/hidden_visibility_slugs — product_visibility terms excluded from results. ( array $slugs )
• glse/search/price_brackets — the price chips under the bar. ( array $brackets )
• glse/rate_limit/client_ip — the address requests are counted against. Change it behind a proxy. ( string $ip )

Output

• glse/template/search_form — path of the form template. ( string $path, array $atts )
• glse/template/search_results — path of the results template. ( string $path, array $vars )
• glse/form/html — the rendered bar. ( string $html, array $atts )
• glse/form/placeholder — the placeholder text. ( string $placeholder )
• glse/results/output — the whole AJAX response before it is sent. ( array $response, string $term, array $results )
• glse/results/no_results_html — what shows when nothing matches. ( string $html, string $term, string $url )
• glse/results/extras_budget — how many rows categories and recommendations may share. Default 6. ( int $rows )
• glse/search/view_all_url — the “see all results” address. ( string $url, string $term, string $category )
• glse/scripts/localize — the data handed to the front-end script. ( array $data )
• glse_force_load_assets — load the assets on a page where the bar is not detected. ( bool $force )
• glse_fs_loaded — action, fired once the licensing SDK is ready. No arguments.

Dictionary (Pro)

• glse/suggestions/taxonomies — taxonomies feeding the spelling dictionary. ( array $taxonomies )
• glse/suggestions/stopwords — words the dictionary ignores. ( array $stopwords )

Deprecated

Still fired, no longer documented as stable. Use the slashed name instead.

• glse_search_filters → glse/search/filters
• glse_modify_results → glse/search/results
• glse_modify_categories_results → glse/search/categories
• glse_after_search → glse/search/after