Searching

There is one thing that I think we should be thinking about moving from being just a snippet and consider integrating into the core, that is the searching.

Searchig will always have to be a snippet of course because we will always need a frontend form, but I think the actual logic should be contained within the core. Most of the reason is so that we could develop some sort of plugin search inclusion functoinality into the API.

With all of the plugins that we are talking about using I believe we need a method to search both static and dynamic content all in one place. I realize that this can be a bit tricky to implement but it definitely needs to be considered.

Interesting idea, and I'd like to hear more...

Most of the reason is so that we could develop some sort of plugin search inclusion functoinality into the API.

With all of the plugins that we are talking about using I believe we need a method to search both static and dynamic content all in one place.

This is a particularly salient point. Imagine having a site with an integrated forum (IPB, PHPbb, ocBB, punBB, and the list goes on), and a unified search that not only searches the content on the site, but also the posts in the forum. This is definitely the way it should be.

Excellent proposition, not easy to implement though if drawing from different databases.... (just a guess)

Easy and "the right thing to do" don't necessarily always go hand in hand!

I've thought about this a bit more and it seems to me that the best way to handle it is to define a standard search results format. Say url, result_context, accuracy, etc.

You could then leave it up to the plugin developers to write their own search code if they want. The core search code would check for search functions in each plugin, run them all and present the results. You could either combine the results together or categorize them similar cnet search (ie page results, calendar results, photo gallery results, etc.).

I've thought about this a bit more and it seems to me that the best way to handle it is to define a standard search results format. Say url, result_context, accuracy, etc.

You could then leave it up to the plugin developers to write their own search code if they want. The core search code would check for search functions in each plugin, run them all and present the results. You could either combine the results together or categorize them similar cnet search (ie page results, calendar results, photo gallery results, etc.).

Great stuff guys. This federated search capability that we are talking about here could handle filesystem searches, custom database searches, and maybe even more complex formats like PDF and Word, would be a great addition to the product and requires little more than an implementation for each target of searchable information. And once we provide a little more consistent object abstraction capabilities, this can be a standard hook (i.e. function) in one of the base classes so authors of web components/applications with persistent data requirements can just write a quick implementation for having their content included in searches. The front-end snippet for using these hooks could be anything imaginable; a super-duper search results aggregator.

I've thought about this a bit more and it seems to me that the best way to handle it is to define a standard search results format. Say url, result_context, accuracy, etc.

You could then leave it up to the plugin developers to write their own search code if they want. The core search code would check for search functions in each plugin, run them all and present the results. You could either combine the results together or categorize them similar cnet search (ie page results, calendar results, photo gallery results, etc.).

Very nice idea aNoble

I'll create an event to do this and maybe a built-in TV to display the results inside the page.

What do you think?

Sounds good to me.

I have some other projects I'm working on these days but things seem to be slowing down for me. I hope to be able to help out with some actual coding soon.

Thanks for putting some work in on this xwisdom. I'm excited to see where it leads.

Sounds good to me.

I have some other projects I'm working on these days but things seem to be slowing down for me. I hope to be able to help out with some actual coding soon.

Thanks for putting some work in on this xwisdom. I'm excited to see where it leads.

Thanks for the feedback. The beauty about it is that you can have several plugins running at the same time. One for forums, one for files one for documents and then have them all rendered into a TV

Hello,

I hope it’s not too much of a no-no to resurrect this old topic, but this is exactly what I’m looking for. I did some searches in the forums for a way to have the ModX search engine also search content that comes from sources other than ModX documents.

I’m working on a site that will use ModX, but will also have forums and a other non-ModX dynamic content such as a product catalog. I’d like a single search function that searches all this content.

I’m a ModX newbie, so maybe there already is a way to do this, but a search of the forums and a search of the resources area yielded only this thread.

Any suggestions?

Thanks!