AbleCommerce Shopping Cart Software

I'm trying to rapidly evaluate this. It can only work for us if we can config
a search screen with cascading/dependent dropdownlists.
i.e. Choose Company -> that then filters Models list just for that company.
Choose Model -> that then filters ...

I was told this could be done via some customization. Can anyone describe how?

As you already know this is not available out of the box in application so you need customization work to get it done. For this first you need some tables in database that can hold Make,Model etc information and then allow you assign your product proper information. Finally on store side you would need something to list available make models in cascading fashion and finally listing narrowed products on matching criteria.

Read following thread as well
viewtopic.php?f=42&t=7808

Thank you for the response.

The referenced thread ended with this quote:

... Regarding Advanced Search, I have a very similar need as you, but perhaps a bit less robust. I'd simply like to modify the Advanced Search to include a drop down to specify Vendor, and then of course have this incorporated into the query. I'd sure appreciate any tips you can share. I'm an ASP.NET programmer so changes to source are certainly within scope - though only after other "configuration" options are exhausted.

That reply was never commented on.

I still need clarification on if I can achieve this via *configuration* or whether or not I'll have
to re-build the application. While I'm an experienced ASP.NET developer, I'm concerned about
the time it will take to learn the underlying architecture to be able to re-build this cleanly.
I was really hoping via configuration that I could achieve this, and I'm frankly surprised it's not
in the product.

It is in the product if you do it with products and variants and not categories and you have inventory turned on for each of the variants of the product. Un checking available for each variant doesn't filter the dropdowns, you have to have an inventory figure for each variant you want displayed.