extensible search

The current release is 4.1.4

This module allows user customisation and developer extension of a search page instance, including analytics and suggestions.

Requirement

• SilverStripe 3.1 → 4.0

This repository is no longer supported, however this module is still supported here.

Getting Started

• Place the module under your root project directory.
• Configure the search engine and search form YAML.
• /dev/build
• Configure the extensible search page.

Overview

Extensible Search Page

This is automatically created, and allows configuration for search based on a search engine (more below).

Search Engine

The extensible search page is designed to use full-text search out of the box, while providing support for custom search engine implementations (elastic search for example).

Full-Text

SilverStripe\ORM\Search\FulltextSearchable:
  searchable_classes:
    - 'SilverStripe\CMS\Model\SiteTree'
SilverStripe\CMS\Model\SiteTree:
  create_table_options:
    MySQLDatabase: 'ENGINE=MyISAM'
  extensions:
    - "SilverStripe\\ORM\\Search\\FulltextSearchable('Title', 'MenuTitle', 'Content', 'MetaDescription')"

When considering the search engine to use, full-text has some important limitations. This configuration can also be applied to File, however, unfortunately it does not support further customisation.

Custom Search Engine

The following is an example configuration, where ElasticSearch extends the abstract CustomSearchEngine class:

nglasl\extensible\ExtensibleSearchPage:
  custom_search_engines:
    nglasl\extensible\ElasticSearch: 'Elastic'

Search Form

PageController:
  extensions:
    - 'nglasl\extensible\ExtensibleSearchExtension'

Using this, to display the search form that users interact with (from your template):

$SearchForm

Search Analytics

These are important to help determine either popular content on your site, or whether content is difficult for users to locate. They're automatically enabled out of the box, however, can be disabled using the following:

nglasl\extensible\ExtensibleSearch:
  enable_analytics: false

When triggering a search, appending ?analytics=false to the URL will bypass the search analytics. This is fantastic for debugging.

Archiving

Depending on your search traffic, /dev/tasks/ExtensibleSearchArchiveTask may be used to archive past search analytics, for each search page. It would be recommended to trigger this on a schedule where possible.

Search Suggestions

These are most effective alongside the search analytics (in which case they're automatically populated), and can be used to display either popular searches on your site, or search form autocomplete options. They're automatically enabled out of the box, however, can be disabled using the following:

nglasl\extensible\ExtensibleSearchSuggestion:
  enable_suggestions: false

To enable autocomplete using the approved search suggestions..

Requirements::javascript('nglasl/silverstripe-extensible-search: client/javascript/extensible-search-suggestions.js');

// OPTIONAL.

Requirements::css('jquery-ui.min.css');
Requirements::javascript('jquery-ui.min.js');

Smart Templating

Custom search engine specific templates may be defined for your search results. These are just two examples:

ElasticSearch_results.ss or Page_results.ss

SS4 Changes

• The custom search engine implementation has changed, and no longer uses extensions (see above).

Maintainer Contact

Nathan Glasl, nathan@symbiote.com.au