History of SearchPackage
{maketoc}
!Overview
This package makes all liberty content on your site searchable. Currently this includes articles, wiki pages, blog headers, blog posts and comments. Search is a service and automatically indexes content when the content is saved. The exception is articles which are only indexed after they are approved.
!Random Indexing - Gone
Random indexing has been removed. This indexing scheme, left over from tiki, would, every so-many clicks, pick a random piece of content and index it.
The issue with "random" indexing is that when you submit an article, or wiki page - that page wouldn't necessarily ever get in the index. It was based on chance. If your site had enough traffic, the page would eventually get picked up. For smaller sites, however, this technique fails to deliver expected results - namely, submitted contet should get indexed and be findable using search.
There it is: gone. No need to worry about that anymore :)
!Search Settings
Administration -> Search -> Search Settings
!!Search Statistics
Record searches made and their frequency. Checking this makes "search statistics" appear on the search admin menu, and gives you access to the statistics page.
!!Minimum number of letters in search word
Index words that are this number of letters or longer only. I set mine to 4, then words like "the" aren't indexed.
!!Maximum number of words
This applies to partial word searches. It is the maximum number of words containing a "partial word" that can be used in any one search. So, if you type in "three" - search will pick up three and twentythree. That is two - the limit is 100 by default.
!!Age in hours of Search cache
Again - applies to partial word searches. It defines the maximum age of cached search results for any given partial word. The results cache will be used to provide a search result if it is available, and will be cleared after either the age, or when the results cache reaches it's limit (LRU List Length)
!!LRU Purging Rate
Applies to partial word searches. LRU = Least Recently Used. Purges the oldest cache entries if there are more than the LRU List length entries every "rate" pages. This will keep space available in the cache for new seach results
!!LRU List Length
Applies to partial word searches. Limit the results cache to this number of entries. I'd say the 100 default here is pretty low. I set mine to 10000
!!Clear Search Words
Deletes all words from the partial word search cache
!!Delete Index
Removes the words in the search word index for the content type selected.
!!Delete and Rebuild Index
Deletes and rebuilds the index for the content type selected. This can take a really long time if you have a lot of content. There will be a command line tool available soon for those that need it. The page timeout will be set to 5 minutes during this operation - however, I have been told this may not be even close to the time needed if your site has thousands of pages.
!After installing the new search module ...
After installing the new search module, you will have to do a reindex at least once on your site to get everything in there. (unless you have done this using CVS versions already). This hasn't been tested yet on a large data set - so beware, and backup.
!Command Line Reindex
There is a ))cmd_line_reindex.php(( file under the search directory. It can be run from the command line in case you have a large site that needs a complete reindex. This way, web page time-outs don't interfere with the indexing.
I have tested it in windows by getting to a command prompt in that directory, and typing:
php ))cmd_line_reindex.php((
It has been tested on a linux system too. I'll add *ux and cron instructions soon.
!Remaining Issues
Remaining issues that I'd like to see tackled:
*Allow Stop Words
*Allow search to search more than liberty content - like phpbb
!Overview
This package makes all liberty content on your site searchable. Currently this includes articles, wiki pages, blog headers, blog posts and comments. Search is a service and automatically indexes content when the content is saved. The exception is articles which are only indexed after they are approved.
!Random Indexing - Gone
Random indexing has been removed. This indexing scheme, left over from tiki, would, every so-many clicks, pick a random piece of content and index it.
The issue with "random" indexing is that when you submit an article, or wiki page - that page wouldn't necessarily ever get in the index. It was based on chance. If your site had enough traffic, the page would eventually get picked up. For smaller sites, however, this technique fails to deliver expected results - namely, submitted contet should get indexed and be findable using search.
There it is: gone. No need to worry about that anymore :)
!Search Settings
Administration -> Search -> Search Settings
!!Search Statistics
Record searches made and their frequency. Checking this makes "search statistics" appear on the search admin menu, and gives you access to the statistics page.
!!Minimum number of letters in search word
Index words that are this number of letters or longer only. I set mine to 4, then words like "the" aren't indexed.
!!Maximum number of words
This applies to partial word searches. It is the maximum number of words containing a "partial word" that can be used in any one search. So, if you type in "three" - search will pick up three and twentythree. That is two - the limit is 100 by default.
!!Age in hours of Search cache
Again - applies to partial word searches. It defines the maximum age of cached search results for any given partial word. The results cache will be used to provide a search result if it is available, and will be cleared after either the age, or when the results cache reaches it's limit (LRU List Length)
!!LRU Purging Rate
Applies to partial word searches. LRU = Least Recently Used. Purges the oldest cache entries if there are more than the LRU List length entries every "rate" pages. This will keep space available in the cache for new seach results
!!LRU List Length
Applies to partial word searches. Limit the results cache to this number of entries. I'd say the 100 default here is pretty low. I set mine to 10000
!!Clear Search Words
Deletes all words from the partial word search cache
!!Delete Index
Removes the words in the search word index for the content type selected.
!!Delete and Rebuild Index
Deletes and rebuilds the index for the content type selected. This can take a really long time if you have a lot of content. There will be a command line tool available soon for those that need it. The page timeout will be set to 5 minutes during this operation - however, I have been told this may not be even close to the time needed if your site has thousands of pages.
!After installing the new search module ...
After installing the new search module, you will have to do a reindex at least once on your site to get everything in there. (unless you have done this using CVS versions already). This hasn't been tested yet on a large data set - so beware, and backup.
!Command Line Reindex
There is a ))cmd_line_reindex.php(( file under the search directory. It can be run from the command line in case you have a large site that needs a complete reindex. This way, web page time-outs don't interfere with the indexing.
I have tested it in windows by getting to a command prompt in that directory, and typing:
php ))cmd_line_reindex.php((
It has been tested on a linux system too. I'll add *ux and cron instructions soon.
!Remaining Issues
Remaining issues that I'd like to see tackled:
*Allow Stop Words
*Allow search to search more than liberty content - like phpbb