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Getting started

Module scope

Introduction

This is a module aimed at adding support for standalone fulltext search engines to SilverStripe.

It contains several layers:

  • A fulltext API, ignoring the actual provision of fulltext searching
  • A connector API, providing common code to allow connecting a fulltext searching engine to the fulltext API
  • Some connectors for common fulltext searching engines (currently only Apache Solr)

Reasoning

There are several fulltext search engines that work in a similar manner. They build indexes of denormalized data that are then searched through using some custom query syntax.

Traditionally, fulltext search connectors for SilverStripe have attempted to hide this design, instead presenting fulltext searching as an extension of the object model. However, the disconnect between the fulltext search engine's design and the object model meant that searching was inefficient. The abstraction would also often break and it was hard to then figure out what was going on.

This module instead provides the ability to define those indexes and queries in PHP. The indexes are defined as a mapping between the SilverStripe object model and the connector-specific fulltext engine index model. This module then interrogates model metadata to build the specific index definition.

It also hooks into SilverStripe framework in order to update the indexes when the models change and connectors then convert those index and query definitions into fulltext engine specific code.

The intent of this module is not to make changing fulltext search engines seamless. Where possible this module provides common interfaces to fulltext engine functionality, abstracting out common behaviour. However, each connector also offers its own extensions, and there is some behaviour (such as getting the fulltext search engines installed, configured and running) that each connector deals with itself, in a way best suited to that search engine's design.

Quick start

If you are running on a Linux-based system, you can get up and running quickly with the quickstart script, like so:

composer require silverstripe/fulltextsearch --prefer-source && vendor/bin/fulltextsearch_quickstart

This will:

  • Install the required Java SDK (using apt-get or yum)
  • Install Solr 4
  • Set up a daemon to run Solr on startup
  • Start Solr
  • Configure Solr in your _config.php (and create one if you don't have one)
  • Create a DefaultIndex
  • Run a Solr Configure and a Solr Reindex

If you have the CMS module installed, you will be able to simply add $SearchForm to your template to add a Solr search form. Default configuration is added via the ContentControllerExtension and alternative SearchForm. With the Simple theme, this is in the Header by default.

Ensure that you don't have SilverStripe\ORM\Search\FulltextSearchable::enable() set in _config.php, as the SearchForm action provided by that class will conflict.

You can override the default template with a new one at templates/Layout/Page_results_solr.ss.