See also Front-ends to Tracker data

Plugin CustomSearch

This wiki plugin has been available since Tiki8 for the purpose of creating custom user interfaces to search for objects within Tiki. This plugin makes use of the functionality of PluginList to show the results of the search. This plugin is intended for rather advanced customization and you will need to have a good understanding of PluginList as well as Search and List from Unified Index and good knowledge of HTML, CSS, and Smarty in order to make good use of it. See also PluginList with editable filters.

Parameters

customsearchjs parameter

Setting the wikiplugin parameter customsearchjs to 1 (enable) will load a javascript (jquery?) file "lib/jquery_tiki/customsearch.js". This is a Custom search js helper function, mainly keeps the search state on the URL hash, but also adds some helper functions like easier sorting, page size, trackeritem title popover, etc.
For this to work you need to have only ONE customSearch plugin on the page with the default ID for the customSearch: id="customsearch_0" or not set (default will be customsearch_0)

Basic Usage

You need two wiki pages, one for the search interface itself, and the other for the template to be used at the interface. From Tiki 13 onwards, it is possible to specify a .tpl file on disk instead of a wiki page for the second wiki page.

1.1.1. Create Wiki page 1, entitled: "Custom Search"

{CUSTOMSEARCH(wiki="Custom Search Tpl")}
  {list max="10"}
  {filter field="tracker_id" content="1"}
  {OUTPUT()}
    {display name="title" format="objectlink"}
  {OUTPUT}
{CUSTOMSEARCH}

{CUSTOMSEARCH(tpl="CustomSearchTpl.tpl")}
  {list max="10"}
  {filter field="tracker_id" content="1"}
  {OUTPUT()}
    {display name="title" format="objectlink"}
  {OUTPUT}
{CUSTOMSEARCH}

1.1.2. Create Wiki page 2, entitled: "Custom Search Tpl"

Note that to have the cleans Bootstrap display you need to remove line feeds and space.

{literal}<div class="input-group mb-3">{input _filter="content" type="text" class="form-control" placeholder="search..." id="customSearch"}<div class="input-group-append">{input type="Submit" value="Search" class="btn btn-primary"}</div></div>{/literal}

Older Version Examples

{literal}
<div class="input-group mb-3">
  {input _filter="content" type="text" class="form-control" placeholder="Any text..." id="q"}
  <div class="input-group-append">
    {input type="Submit" value="Search" class="btn btn-outline-secondary"}
  </div>
</div>
{/literal}

{literal}
	  Any text: {input _filter="content" type="text"}
	  {input type="Submit" value="Search"}
	{/literal}

{literal}
	  <div class="col-sm-2">Any text:</div><div class="col-sm-10">{input _filter="content" type="text" class="form-control"}</div>
	  <div class="col-sm-10 col-sm-push-2">{input type="Submit" value="Search" class="btn btn-primary"}</div>
	{/literal}

Any text: {input _filter="content" type="text" }

Any text: {input _filter="content" type="text" _field="tracker_field_my_permanent_name"}

1.1.3. Grant permission to the tpl page

You need to grant permissions to the tpl page "Custom Search Tpl" to be used as a tracker template (or a template for unified search) by anonymous or registered users (or the group of your choice). Click on permissions for that page, and change permissions accordingly. Remember to restrict edit permissions to only admin users since then to that page.

1.1.4. Enable unified search

Ensure that you have Unified search enabled, under "Control Panels > Search".

1.1.5. Rebuild search index

Rebuild your search index after you have created some content in tracker 1, so that this content can be found by the search engine through the search index.

1.1.6. Use your custom search interface

Go to page 1 to use your new custom search interface.

Notes:

• Assuming you have a tracker with id 1 with some items, that should work.
• In fact if you remove the line
  
  Copy to clipboard

  {filter field="tracker_id" content="1"}

• it will work as a search over all your content. In fact just this line on it's own in a page will work!
  
  Copy to clipboard

  {customsearch wiki="Custom Search Tpl"}

1.1.7. Download search results

Since Tiki18 it is possible to add a download button to export the results of the search query. This option is available if you use the "table" output (see: Download CSV of Table Results . What is interesting in this option is that it will export ALL the results found for the search query and not only the list displayed (pagination may limit the visible list of results).

This option has been improved in Tiki25 offering an option to position the download button when using the table.tpl template.

{CUSTOMSEARCH(tpl="CustomSearchTpl.tpl")}
{filter content="22" field="tracker_id"}
{OUTPUT(template="table" downloadable="Sample file.csv" downloadable-position="top")}
  {column label="Firstname" field="firstname"}
  {column label="Lastname" field="lastname"}
{OUTPUT}
  {FORMAT(name="firstname")}{display name="tracker_field_contactsFirstName"}{FORMAT}
  {FORMAT(name="lastname")}{display name="tracker_field_contactsLastName" format="trackerrender"}{FORMAT}
{CUSTOMSEARCH}

1.1.8. Multilingual

It is fairly easy to create a multilingual interface using the i18n feature and the Tiki translation tools out-in-the-box. Tools like the Plugin Lang (recommended for large sections containing other elements than text), the Plugin Translated (or PluginTr) (recommended for sentences, text) and the tr Smarty tag (recommended for sentences, text in a smarty template)

There are cases you cannot use translation tag inside another element in a Smarty template. You can overcome the issue using a condition based on the language preference (the language actually in use) or use the wikiplugin smarty syntax.

See the multilingual samples below.

Working Custom Search Example

For a working example showing many of these features see this Custom Search Example page.

More advanced usage

Wiki syntax:

{CUSTOMSEARCH(wiki="Search-tpl" id="mysearch")}
    {output template="/var/www/html/templates/my-custom-searchresults.tpl" pagination="y"}
    <put whatever base filters and formatting things that you would do in the LIST plugin here>
{CUSTOMSEARCH}

Note that the pagination="y" is generally required so that you have the ability to paginate across multiple pages of search results. (There is a more advanced way of specifying the pagination manually within Smarty templates explained below).

Base filters are filters that you want applied regardless of what search parameters the user chooses in the search form.

See PluginList for more information about filters and formatting of output.

Creating your search interface

Creating the wiki page

You will need to create a template to be placed in the wiki page mentioned above. In this wiki page, you need to surround the contents with smarty literal tags so that the contents don't get parsed as Smarty tags.

{literal}
<contents of template>
{/literal}

In addition, if you want to use HTML in your template, you can use PluginHTML:

{literal}
{HTML()}
<contents of template>
{HTML}
{/literal}

Creating form elements

Creating form elements are similar to creating standard HTML form elements, combined with using the filter parameters found in PluginList. Specify each element using plugin syntax. If you want to use a standard HTML supported attribute, simply use it and it will appear in the resulting HTML. All internal attributes that are meant for the LIST plugin to generate the search results should start with an underscore (_), so that they don't end up in the HTML (which would be invalid). For example, if you want to create a text search field that searches for the content entered:

{input _filter="content" type="text"}

You can add any HTML supported attributes if you want, for e.g.:

{input _filter="content" type="text" class="mysearchbox"}

If you want to specify a specific field/fields to search in as described in PluginList, for example:

{input _filter="content" _field="tracker_field_20" type="text" class="mysearchbox"}
{input _filter="content" _field="tracker_field_28,tracker_field_22" type="text"}

Text search

Search in one or several text tracker field

It is possible to filter (search) in one field but you can search in multiple fields using commas and other field permaname.

{input _filter="content" _field="tracker_field_20,tracker_field_28,tracker_field_22" type="text" class="mysearchbox"}

Search in a text tracker field with autocomplete

In a text tracker field have an "Autocomplete" parameter and if set to yes, it is possible to have the autocomplete feature used from within the customSearch interface adding a small JQuery code.

$("#customsearch_0_14").tiki("autocomplete", "trackervalue", { fieldId: 11});

(replace "customsearch_0_14" with the id of your form and "fieldId: 11" with your field id)

Drop down (with or without multiselect) example:

Note how you can specify labels different from the values if you want

{select _filter="content" _options="1980,1981,1982" _field="tracker_field_104" multiple="multiple"}
{select _filter="content" _field="tracker_field_104" _options="1980,1981,1982" _labels="eighty,eighty-one,eighty-two"}

You can also set a default item to be selected using the _default element. To avoid the blank option from appearing, use the _mandatory attribute.

{select _filter="content" _options="1980,1981,1982" _field="tracker_field_104" multiple="multiple" _default="1980"}
{select _filter="content" _options="1980,1981,1982" _field="tracker_field_104" multiple="multiple" _mandatory="y" _default="1980"}

From Tiki 14.1 onwards custom search will automatically populate the drop-down menu for ItemLink, UserSelector and Text tracker field inputs. You need to specify the _field and _trackerId params only.
You can force a blank or labelled item (has no value) by using the attribute _firstlabel like, kind of a placeholder HTML attribute.

{select _field="tracker_field_myFieldPermName" _trackerId="42" _firstlabel="default text"}

From Tiki 19.0 (and 18.3) you can use the _operator attribute to override the site-wide preference for default boolean operator for multiple select fields.

{select _filter="content" _options="o,p,c" _labels="Open,Pending,Closed" _field="tracker_status" _operator="or" class="form-control" multiple="multiple" id="status"}

From Tiki 21+ you can use the parameter _unquoted to not create quotes around strings with spaces in. This is useful for doing boolean filters, such as:

{select _filter="content" _options="o OR p,c" _labels="Open or Pending,Closed" _field="tracker_status" class="form-control" id="status" _unquoted="y"}

Checkbox example:

The most important thing to keep in mind about checkboxes is that they cannot take a normal "value" parameter like in HTML. Instead, use the _value (with underscore) parameter if you want to set a value. If you do not set a value, the values searched for will by default be y (if checked) or NOT y (if not checked). If you want the checkbox to be checked by default, specify _default="y" . For example.

{input _filter="content" _default="y" _field="tracker_field_58" type="checkbox"}

If you want the checkbox to behave in reverse, i.e. search for NOT y when it is checked and y when it is not checked, specify value="n" .

{input _filter="content" _field="tracker_field_58" _value="n" type="checkbox"}

If you want the checkbox to mean that you want to search for whatever term you want when checked, set _value to something arbitrary, for example:

{input _filter="content" _field="tracker_field_58" _value="tiki" type="checkbox"}

Radio button example:

The most important thing to remember about radio buttons is that they need a _group attribute. This _group attribute determines which radio buttons are together as a group. For example:

Version: {input _filter="content" type="radio" _field="tracker_field_20" _value="7" _group="20"} Tiki 7 {input type="radio" _filter="content" _field="tracker_field_20" _value="8" _group="20"} Tiki 8

Categories example:

In general, if there are just a few categories to search by, you can use radio buttons or checkboxes (in the following example 24 is the category ID you want to search for when the checkbox is checked):

{input _filter="categories" type="checkbox" _value="24"}

If you want the category search to not only search the specified category but also all of its sub-categories, specify the _deep attribute:

{input _filter="categories" type="checkbox" _deep="y" _value="24"}

In addition, to facilitate creating category selection elements for many categories, there is a special way to quickly show multiple checkboxes/radio buttons or a drop-down for multiple categories based on a parent category.

{categories _parent="10" _style="checkbox" _group="10"}
{categories _parent="22" _style="radio" _group="12"}
{categories _parent="30" _style="select" _group="12"}
{categories _parent="30" _style="select" multiple="multiple"}
{categories _parent="30" _style="select" _categpath="y" _showdeep="y"}

Note that if you are specifying a _style of checkbox or radio, _group is mandatory.

Other parameters include _categpath which shows the full category path category labels instead of just the category name, and _showdeep which shows not just the immediate children of the parent category specified but all the sub-children as well.

When specifying multiple="multiple" there is not first blank item, you can force a blank or labelled item (has no value) by using the attribute _firstlabel.

Adding a submit button

{input type="submit"}

Grouping elements together for the purpose of OR searching instead of AND

It has already been mentioned above that Radio buttons as well as categories (those using a _style attribute of checkbox and radio) need to use the _group attribute mandatory.

However, it is possible to use the _group attribute for other types of fields as well, if you want them to be searched using OR logic instead of AND which is how different filters are combined. So long as the filters you are trying to group together are exactly the same except for the search term, they can be grouped. For example, the following searches for either "apples" or "oranges" if both checkboxes are checked:

{input _filter="content" type="checkbox" _value="apples" _group="15"} Apples
{input _filter="content" type="checkbox" _value="oranges" _group="15"} Oranges

Object type searches

If you want to dynamically filter on object types (e.g. trackeritem, wiki page, calendaritem etc) then you need to use an input with _filter="type" e.g.:

{input _filter="type" type="hidden" id="my_object_type"}

Note that it has to be something other than type="text" (so hidden if using javascript, or select to use a dropdown).

Range searches

The way to generate a search for a value between two values is to use the _daterange attribute to group the 2 items that you want to search in between together. The following example searches a tracker field that contains all 4-digit years.

Show content between {select _filter="content" _field="tracker_field_104" _options="2000,2001,2002,2003,2004,2005" _textrange="1"} and {select _filter="content" _field="tracker_field_104" _options="2000,2001,2002,2003,2004,2005" _textrange="1"}

The following example is an interesting twist, where you automatically set one end of the range through a hidden field.

Show only content after {select _filter="content" _field="tracker_field_104" _default="2000" _mandatory="y" _options="2000,2005,2010" _textrange="2"}{input _filter="content" _field="tracker_field_104" type="hidden" value="9999" _textrange="2"}

To do a range search on things like modification dates, which are "unix timestamps indexed as dates", use _daterange instead of _textrange. This will ensure than the comparison is correct despite the string based search since these timestamps are indexed in YYYYMMDDHHMMSS format.

Show content modified between {select _filter="content" _field="modification_date" _options="946684800,1104537600,1262304000" _labels="2000,2005,2010" _daterange="1"} and {select _filter="content" _field="modification_date" _options="946684800,1104537600,1262304000" _labels="2000,2005,2010" _daterange="1"}

Date Range Picker

In Tiki 9 there is also a date range picker you can use like this:

{daterange _field="modification_date" _from="1104537600" _to="1262304000" _showtime="y"}
{daterange _field="modification_date" _from="1104537600" _gap="31536000"}

You can also use "now" as a date. It will give you the current time/date.

Since Tiki 18.2 you can use English date format based on strtotime PHP function syntax: https://secure.php.net/manual/en/function.strtotime.php.

{daterange _field="modification_date" _gap="2 weeks" _to="next week" }
{daterange _field="modification_date" _gap="1 month" _to="now" }

To test your "humanly readable" date strings you can use this tool so see what the server interprets them as, for example this for the first friday of next month

You need to set a default filter in the customsearch as follows so that the user is not confused when first arriving at the page.

{filter range="modification_date" from="1104537600" to="1262304000"}
{filter range="modification_date" from="now" gap="31536000"}

Since Tiki 18.3 the end date uses the end of the day, as opposed to midnight at the beginning of that day. This is generally agreed to be more intuitive, but if you need to revert to the previous behaviour add a parameter _toendofday="n". For instance this will find nothing:

{daterange _field="modification_date" _from="today" _to="today" _toendofday="n"}

Single-ended range searches

Before Tiki14, the user must enter both ends of the filter for the range search for the search to have any effect. Therefore it is important to make sure the user selects a value, or a _default is set.

From Tiki14 it is possible allow for doing range searches with user only specifying one end of the range and the other end left blank but still having default value. For example, the following code will generate 2 form fields for searching the tracker field duration. If the user keeps the first one blank and enters 20 in the second field, it will search for the range 0 to 20. If the user enters 50 in the first field but leaves the second field blank, then the range searched for is 50 to 9999. Note that in each of the fields, _emptyto OR _emptyfrom must be used TOGETHER WITH _emptyother for this to work. If you leave out _emptyother, unpredictable results can occur because browsers may not submit empty form fields (and so this is the only way to get the information on the other range endpoint if it's not filled in).

{input class="form-control" type="number" placeholder="Min" _filter="content" _field="tracker_field_duration" _emptyfrom="0" _emptyother="9999" _textrange="1"} - {input class="form-control" type="number" placeholder="Max" _filter="content" _field="tracker_field_duration" _emptyto="9999" _emptyother="0" _textrange="1"}

Distance Searches

Since Tiki 16
This should be considered unfinished and somewhat experimental but basically works with some customisation. The three inputs are:

• distance: Use a number and a unit, e.g. 1000m for one thousand metres
• latitude: A floating point number up between -90 and +90
• longitude: A floating point number up between -180 and +180

{DIV(class="row")}{distance class="form-control col-sm-4"}{DIV}

Partial searches

Since Tiki 22
It was possible to perform a partial search foo* in a text field in order to match foo, foobar, foostuff but it is not user-friendly and users need to know or figure it out.
A parameter _partial has been added to the plugin CustomSearch in Tiki22 to allow partial search.

{input _field="tracker_field_peopleLastname,tracker_field_peopleFirstname" _trackerId="1" class="form-control" placeholder="Look for names in directory" _partial="y" }

One offers the opportunity for users to search by only entering the first characters of a word.

Multilingual samples

You can use them on your Wiki page or your Smarty template
literal tags depends of the context and the way you set your template while needed in most case, you may need to remove them for your usage

Label translation using Plugin Lang

Using the Plugin Lang you can display block of "content" based on the language selection in your results page or you customSearch interface.

{wikiplugin _name=lang lang=fr}
{literal}
{select _filter="content" _options="September,October,November,December,January,February,March,April,May,June,July,August" _labels="Septembre,Octobre,Novembre,Decembre,Janvier,Février,Mars,Avril,Mai,Juin,Juillet,Aout" _field="tracker_field_timeworkWorkerMonth" class="custom-select"}
{/literal}
{/wikiplugin}

{wikiplugin _name=lang lang=fr}
{literal}
{select _filter="content" _options="o,p,c" _labels="Ouverte,En attente,Fermée" _field="tracker_status" _operator="or" class="form-control custom-select" multiple="multiple" id="statusSelector_field"}
{/literal}
{/wikiplugin}

Multilingual submit button replacement

This is useful to have the "Search" button translated. Using HTML version of the element work for any element.

Instead of {input type="Submit" value="Search" class="btn btn-primary"}

<button type="submit" class="btn btn-primary">{tr}Search{/tr}</button>

Using the Tiki language preferences

You can use the selected language to control what is displayed or used in embedded wikiplugin (like an embedded wikiplugin List)

{if $prefs.language eq fr} Montre ca {else} Show this {/if}

Setting default search parameters when first coming to the page

As already mentioned above, you can use the _default parameter on specific fields. However, in some cases you are coming from another page where you want to pass some input from there via the query string. To do this you can pass in the query string, for example:

[tiki-index_raw.php?page=Search&default[field]=value]
''Or with SEFURL enabled''
[Search?default~field=value]

The "field" here is the same as what you have in the _field attribute in your search template.

You can have several search parameters in the url using &.
You may also use an item link/list value (in the example below tracker_field_kind is item link) in some case.

tiki-index_raw.php?page=Search&default[field]=value&default[field]=value
e.g. [tiki-index_raw.php?page=Search&default[tracker_field_month]=October&default[tracker_field_kind]=644]
''Or with SEFURL enabled''
[Search?default~tracker_field_month=October&default~tracker_field_kind=644]

If you have categories filters defined, you can set the defaults as follows:

tiki-index_raw.php?page=Search&defaultcat[parent]=value
e.g. [tiki-index_raw.php?page=Search&defaultcat[5]=2,7]
''Or with SEFURL enabled''
[Search?defaultcat~5=2,7]

Setting Date Ranges and Radio Buttons From The URL

Improvements in Tiki 23.1 (also 22.2)
Date Ranges
PHP strtotime values can be used to set date range field defaults. You can test your values here https://strtotime.co.uk

The wiki page containing the Custom Search plugin is called "search" and the date range input has the id "timedate":

* From one year ago to the end of the current month
[search?default~timedate_from=-1+year&default~timedate_to=first+day+of+next+month]
* Everything in the past year
[search?default~timedate_gap=1+year&default~timedate_to=now]
* Everything in 2015
[search?default~timedate_gap=1+year&default~timedate_from=2015-1-1]

Radio Buttons
You can use the _field or the _group value to set Radio Buttons by their value

[Search?default~tracker_field_radioButton=1]
or
[Search?default~myGroup=3]

Setting Default Search Parameters From A Smarty Template

Smarty syntax can be used to solve more complex cases in previous versions.

In the following we use the Smarty syntax to use a real date to filter results by month following:
https://www.smarty.net/docs/en/language.modifier.date.format.tpl

tiki-index_raw.php?page=Search&default[field]={smarty}
e.g. tiki-index_raw.php?page=Serch&default[tracker_field_month]={'this month'|date_format:"%B"}
''Or with SEFURL enabled''
<a href="Search?default~tracker_field_month={'this month'|date_format:"%B"}">Search this month</a>

Note that if you are having problems using square brackets within link syntax in a wiki page, you may want to urlencode the square brackets, for example:

[tiki-index_raw.php?page=Search&defaultcat%5b7%5d=3]
''Or use ~ instead of square brackets completely (also with SEFURL enabled)''
[Search?defaultcat~5=3]

Advanced adding of jquery/javascript on AJAX loading of results

This is relevant only if you are implementing an advanced template for PluginList used in conjunction with Custom Search, and it contains jquery/javascript that affects the search results.

Because in IE prior to version 9 it is not possible (due to crappy DOM handling) to deliver jquery/javascript that affect the content of the AJAX response together with the AJAX response, instead of including such scripts in the template for PluginList, you will need to include such scripts as follows:

Create a wiki page as follows, enclosing your javascript/jquery, and specify the wiki page name as the callbackscript parameter to the CUSTOMSEARCH plugin.

{JQ()}
    $(document).on("pageSearchReady", function() {

		doYourStuff();

       return true;
    });
{JQ}

Example excerpt

Wiki page to display results of custom search

{CUSTOMSEARCH(wiki="My Custom Search Tpl" recalllastsearch="0" searchonload="1" requireinput="0" searchable_only="1" customsearchjs="1" callbackscript="shortenDescriptions")}

(the filters and output of the custom search as usual)

{CUSTOMSEARCH}

Contents of "My Custom Search Tpl"

The page "My Custom Search Tpl" has this type of code:

<div id="courseOverview">{$row.courseDescription|truncate:30:"...":false}</div> <a  class="readMore" >Read more</a>
<div id="courseOverviewFull" style="display: none">{$row.courseDescription}</div> <a  class="readLess" style="display: none">Read less</a>

Contents of "shortenDescriptions" (callbackscript)

The page shortenDescriptions:

{JQ()}
    $(document).on("pageSearchReady", function() {

        //using the .readMore class as a selector for the click event over it.
        $('.readMore').click(function(){ 
            $('#courseOverview').toggle();
            $('#courseOverviewFull').show();
            $('.readLess').show();
            $('.readMore').hide();
        });
        $('.readLess').click(function(){ 
            $('#courseOverview').toggle();
            $('#courseOverviewFull').hide();
            $('.readLess').hide();
            $('.readMore').show();
        });

       return true;
    });
{JQ}

Advanced Pagination in Smarty Template

Advanced pagination not using pagination="y" but instead directly creating the pagination within the Smarty template, by specifying the customsearch ID manually as follows:

{assign var='customsearchid' value="xyz"}
{pagination_links offset_jsvar="customsearch_`$customsearchid`.offset" _onclick="$('#customsearch_`$customsearchid`').submit();return false;" resultset=$results}{/pagination_links}

Setting maxRecords, sort_mode, and offset

Overriding defaults that apply on arriving at search page

The defaults can be overridden by passing into the query string these variables. For example, if you want the number of search results to show to be set to 10, you can do:

http://yoursite.tiki.org/tiki-index_raw.php?page=MySearch&maxRecords=10
(or with SEFURL on) http://yoursite.tiki.org/MySearch?maxRecords=10

For sort_mode, you can also set it inside your search template. Please be warned that sorting is based on string. if you are trying to sort by numbers, make sure all your numbers are of the same number of digits. Otherwise 2 will be larger than 12. The only way to get around this for now is to make sure all numbers are entered in a padded form, for example, 0012 for 12.

{sort mode="tracker_field_18_desc"}

Changing the settings after arriving at the search page

You will need a little Jquery/javascript for this. It is possible to set the javascript variables "customsearch_<id>.maxRecords", "customsearch_<id>.sort_mode", "customsearch_<id>.offset" programmatically and then resubmit the form by calling the submit() event handler on the form using the jquery. For example:

( "#datesort" ).click(function()
    customsearch_<id>.sort_mode = "modification_date_desc" ;
    $('#customsearch_<id>').submit();
    return false;
});

Customizing the interface with CSS

The final step is to customize the search interface with CSS. The search results is in a DIV with the ID customsearch_<id>_form. The search form is in a DIV with the ID customsearch_<id>_results Because you can assign your own CSS classes to each of the form elements above, you can customize it anyway you like.

Using Facets

Facets are dynamic search filters provided by the search engines. They allow to refine the user's search. Not all search engines support this feature. At this time, it is only supported by the Elasticsearch implementation.

Global parameters for Facets can be set on the Admin, Search control panel under Search Results (/tiki-admin.php?page=search&cookietab=2)

Using facets with CustomSearch requires that hidden fields be added to the search form. These fields will be filled as the user selects filters. To simplify binding, make sure you set the ID explicitly.

{input _filter="content" type="hidden" _field="object_type" id="my_object_filter"}
{input _filter="content" type="hidden" _field="deep_categories" id="my_deep_categories"}

The CustomSearch plugin must then define which facet it wishes to obtain. When configuring the facets, you get to choose how to handle multiple selection. By default, OR filters will be used.

{CUSTOMSEARCH()}
  ...
  {facet name=object_type operator=or}
  {facet name=deep_categories operator=and}
  ...
{CUSTOMSEARCH}

Then, you need to modify the results template to display the facets selector tools (see the sample below)

Facets from Categories

To use categories as facet generators, go to the search control panel, and on the "search results" tab add the top category or categories you will need to the "Generate custom facets from categories" preference, apply that and rebuild the search index.

Add the hidden fields to your search form as above, but using this special format for the id: deep_categories_under_XXX replacing the XXX with the top category id

{input _filter="content" type="hidden" _field="tracker_field_types" id="deep_categories_under_28"}
{input _filter="content" type="hidden" _field="tracker_field_styles"  id="deep_categories_under_42"}

and then add the facet commands to your custom search page like this:

{CUSTOMSEARCH()}
  ...
  {facet name="deep_categories_under_28"}
  {facet name="deep_categories_under_42"}
  ...
{CUSTOMSEARCH}

Then, you need to modify the results template to display the facets selector tools (see the sample below)

Facet Parameters

Operator

Sets the input above to use "AND" or "OR" (default is "OR")

Count

Since 12.4
You can specify the maximum number of facets returned. This defaults to 10, but can be changed globally using the "Facet result count" preference on the search results control panel, or per facet in the plugin like this:

{CUSTOMSEARCH()}
  ...
  {facet name=deep_categories operator=or count=50}
  ...
{CUSTOMSEARCH}

Order

Since 20.1
Sets the order the facets are returned in the results, use either _count (default) or _term for ES5 (or _key for ES6+). Append _asc or _desc for ascending and descending.

Useful for charts where you need to set the colours according to the order the facets/aggregations are returned.

{CUSTOMSEARCH()}
  ...
  {facet name="tracker_status" order="_term_asc"}
  ...
{CUSTOMSEARCH}

Min

Since 20.1
Set the min_doc_count - useful for displaying empty aggregations

{CUSTOMSEARCH()}
  ...
  {facet name=deep_categories min="0"}
  ...
{CUSTOMSEARCH}

Date Based Facets

Since 20.1

Ranges

Used for type=date_range each range is separated by a pipe | character, and within that use commas to separate from,-+to+-,-+label+-
More info on date formats accepted here on elastic.co

{CUSTOMSEARCH()}
  ...
  {facet name="date" type="date_range" id="date_range" ranges="2018-01-01,2018-04-01,2018 Q1|2018-04-01,2018-07-01,2018 Q2|2018-07-01,2018-10-01,2018 Q3|2018-10-01,2019-01-01,2018 Q4"}
  ...
{CUSTOMSEARCH}

Interval

For type=date_histogram (more info here)

{CUSTOMSEARCH()}
  ...
  {facet name="date" type="date_histogram" id="date_histogram" interval="year"}
  ...
{CUSTOMSEARCH}

Facets selector tools in your results template

Finally, you need to modify the results template. The $facets variable is available and contains all the facets returned by the search engine. It is important to verify that the results have been provided.

{$facets|var_dump}

In this example, Chosen is used to render the facet elements nicely and each change to a facet causes the results to reload. The registerFacet() jQuery function binds the select element to the hidden field annotated by data-for.

<div>
    <div class="facets">
        {if $facets.deep_categories}
            <h6>{$facets.deep_categories.label|escape}</h6>
            <select multiple name="{$facets.deep_categories.name|escape}" data-for="#my_deep_categories" data-join="{$facets.deep_categories.operator|escape}">
                {foreach from=$facets.deep_categories.options key=value item=label}
                    <option value="{$value|escape}">{$label|escape}</option>
                {/foreach}
            </select>
        {/if}
        {if $facets.object_type}
            <h6>{$facet.label|escape}</h6>
            <select multiple name="{$facets.object_type.name|escape}" data-for="#my_object_filter" data-join="{$facets.object_type.operator|escape}">
                {foreach from=$facets.object_type.options key=value item=label}
                    <option value="{$value|escape}">{$label|escape}</option>
                {/foreach}
            </select>
        {/if}
    </div>
    <div style="float: left; width: 66%;">
        <ul>
            {foreach from=$results item=row}
                <li>{object_link type=$row.object_type id=$row.object_id} {$row.highlight|escape}</li>
            {/foreach}
        </ul>
    </div>
</div>
{jq}
    $.applyChosen();
    $('.facets select').registerFacet();
    $('.facets select').change(function () {
        $('#customsearch_0').submit();
    }); 
{/jq}

Generating Charts from Facets

Since Tiki 19 (r68500) example templates can be found in templates/examples/search/.
Some examples of this can be found on PluginCustomSearch Chart Examples

Related profiles

Shopping Cart profile
The https://profiles.tiki.org/Shopping_Cart profile sets up a more complicated custom search using smarty templates etc.

Test

Feel free to apply it to your tiki site and learn how it work, adapt it to your own needs, etc.

Aliases

Custom search | Plugin Custom Search | CustomSearch