Live Search - My Requirements
Hi,
Looking at Live Search to replace the default Smart Search and just wondering if it will allow me to do the following:
- Content: Articles, created with SP Page Builder (Not interested in SP Page Builder Pages)
- Prefilled Results so user can then search/filter (not deal breaker though)
- Search: Search Suggestions (autofill as user types like default smart search)
- Filtering: Category, Tags, Author, Customer Fields
- Sorting: Published date (Latest articles), Title, Author, Custom Date Field (would be nice but not required)
Thank you in advance for your assistance
16 answers
Hi there,
SP Page Builder: Any component that includes Smart Search plugins should work fine.
Prefilled Results: Yes, you can pre-select filters and search terms.
Search Suggestions: Yes, you can see a demo here: https://www.minitek.gr/search-modal. There are up to 10 search suggestions under the search input field.
Filtering: This depends on the Smart Search plugins of your component. Any content maps created by your smart search plugins can be used as filters.
Sorting: There are 2 available sorting options: Relevance and Date.
All sound good except the Sorting, Date. Which Date is it, there are multiple. Created, Published, Modified. Ideally I would like to use this to allow visitors to see New articles (sort by Created Date Descending), can't use Latest Articles because of Framework/Template I am using
Though I suppose they could get there filtering and not deal breaker
Thank you for taking the time to respond to each query
Cheers
The date sorting is usually the date the item was created. This varies depending on the smart search plugin. The plugin for the Joomla articles is using the created date field, but other plugins may use a different field. Minitek Live Search does not have control over this, the plugins are responsible for mapping the date field.
I will try to add the title sorting soon.
Thanks again for your time. I will be getting Live Search later today for sure and look forward to working with it
You're welcome.
I am just trying Live Search now and I think I may have gotten it mixed up with another product as I definitely left out a requirement.
Can I filter on Custom Fields? That is a hard requirement of mine
Cheers and sorry for not specifying sooner
Hi there,
Minitek Live Search is not responsible for creating content maps for custom fields. This is the responsibility of the smart search plugins for each component. Some plugins may index custom fields while some others may not.
I'm not familiar with SP Page Builder, does it use its own smart search plugins or the Content - Smart Search plugin (the plugin used for indexing Articles)?
In current Joomla version, the Content - Smart Search plugin does not index custom fields for Articles. I think this functionality has already been planned by the Joomla developers and will be added soon I guess.
fair enough, it was my fault completely should have specified.
Thank for your quick response
I will create a custom version of the Content - Smart Search plugin next week, where I'll try to add the custom fields as content maps. Would you like to beta-test it when it's ready?
Sure, I would be eternally grateful if you could get Custom Fields implemented and I bet some of your customer current and future would have a use for it too.
Custom fields are very useful but also very under utilised in native Joomla or maybe its just my specific needs. Anyway, anything I could do to help just ask
Cheers
Steve
Hope you don't mind me taking the opportunity to add a wish to this. I have a few Custom date fields and ideally a filter for a date field would be a date range, e.g. List all articles where the Custom Date is Between 2022.12.01 and 2022.12.31.
Cheers
Sure, I'll look into this, even though it sounds a bit more complicated and I'm not 100% sure I can add this soon.
Thank you so much for even considering looking into to it. No expectations... just never hurts to ask :-)
Cheers
Hi,
I know this is an old "thread" but I was just wondering if you still had plans to create a content - smart search that index custom field. if not, no worries, I'll start looking for something else
I did notice you added Title to your sorting which I was looking for , so thanks for that
Cheers and a bit late but hope your new year is going well ;-)
Hi Steve,
Happy new year to you too!
No, unfortunately I had to abandon this plan as it would create a maintenance nightmare. I do hope though that the Joomla developers will add this soon. There are a few people already looking into adding this feature.
Thanks much for response
A shame but I understand. Yes I do hope the team adds support for them.
Take Care