how to give link to each attributes of a manufacturer - magento

Question

I have added 4 to 5 attributes in manufacture and shown in right column of front end.Now i want to link the each attributes of manufacture. if i will click an attribute of a manufacturer, it will show all the products which contain that arribute/brand.
if anyone knows this, please help me out.
thanks!
I have shown the attribute name in front end by the below code
<?php
$attribute = Mage::getSingleton('eav/config')->getAttribute('catalog_product', 'Manufacturer');
if ($attribute->usesSource()) {
$options = $attribute->getSource()->getAllOptions(false);
if(count( $options)>0){
?>
<div class="title_box">Manufacturers</div>
<?php $i=1;?>
<ul class="left_menu">
<?php
foreach($options as $eachval){
?>
<?php if($i%2==0){ ?>
<li class="even"><?php echo $eachval['label']?></li>
<?php } else { ?>
<li class="odd"><?php echo $eachval['label']?></li>
<?php } $i++; ?>
<?php } ?>
</ul>
<?php } } ?>
I have made one page manu.phtml in catalog/product page and put the following above code now how to give link to that arribute...........please describe briefly
in href link,what i have to write so that when i will click on any attribute it will show all products associated to that attribute/brand.

Answer 1

There is always the option of creating a new module with a custom controller that would list the products from a specified brand, but that is a painful process even if it's the clean way.
Here is a simple version if you don't mind the ugly urls.
The main idea is to link your brand names to the advanced search page with a specific brand filled in.
You can get the url like this:
$url = Mage::getUrl('catalogsearch/advanced/result', array('_query'=>'brand='.$value->getId()))
You just need now to get the id of the specific brand ($value->getId()), but if you can get the name you can get the id also.
And don't forget to specify that the brand attribute is used in advanced search. You can do that by editing the attribute in the backend.
[EDIT]
Make your ul element look like this:
<ul class="left_menu">
<?php
foreach($options as $eachval){
$url = Mage::getUrl('catalogsearch/advanced/result', array('_query'=>'Manufacturer='.$eachval['value']));
?>
<?php if($i%2==0){ ?>
<li class="even"><?php echo $eachval['label']?></li>
<?php } else { ?>
<li class="odd"><?php echo $eachval['label']?></li>
<?php } $i++; ?>
<?php } ?>
</ul>
Small tip off topic. You can avoid duplication of the li elements in your code like this
<ul class="left_menu">
<?php
foreach($options as $eachval){
$url = Mage::getUrl('catalogsearch/advanced/result', array('_query'=>'Manufacturer='.$eachval['value']));
?>
<li class="<?php echo ($i%2 == 0) ? 'even':'odd';?>"><?php echo $eachval['label']?></li>
<?php } $i++; ?>
<?php } ?>
</ul>