This module actually lacks of facets and in-deep views integration, that's why I'm starting this ;-)

In the last months I have seen a lot of movement behind the search on drupal, and actually there are plenty of alternatives to integrate with.

So, I will try to list here all the options I'm talking about in no particular order:

  • Searchlight: Searchlight is designed to use search backends in a pluggable and interchangeable manner. There are currently two backend plugins available for Searchlight: Sphinx and Apache Solr. (look at yhahn screencast)
  • Search in Drupal 8 and beyond: I think it's also a good idea to help in the process of changes at core so we can make sure all we need is there :-)
  • Facet API: The Facet API module provides a consolidated code base for the Search Lucene API and Apache Solr Search Integration projects surrounding the creation and management of facets. It has the potential of supporting any other search module that implements the adapter
  • Creating a generic Search APIThe goal of this project is to build a generic Search API that will on the one hand abstract from the data source (using the entity_metadata module) — thus allowing all kinds of entities to be as easily indexed and searched as nodes —, and from the indexer / search engine on the other hand, making concrete implementations like Solr, Lucene, Xapian, … implement only the specific details and thereby eliminating unnecessary code duplication.

IMHO searchlight integration should be the first one to implement, since I see great potential and awesome maintainer :-) behind.

It would be really great to hear about other opinions on this before starting to do something.

Comments

jeremy’s picture

jeremy commented

Hi Marco, I'm glad to see you picking this up!

It looks like the Searchlight effort would be maintained outside of this project? I see include files in github for Sphinx and Solr, so the goal there would be to contribute an include file for Xapian?

Adding Facet support to the Xapian module would likely make it much more attractive to folks, imo.

Exciting to see so many projects focused on search. Perhaps it would be best to open an individual ticket for each project, tracking any effort that you put toward these projects that way?

At the end of the day: I recommend you work on whichever piece sounds the most exciting and fun to you!

singularo’s picture

singularo
Location Adelaide, AUS
commented

Hi Marco, Jeremy,

Good to see some interest in the xapian module, my own needs/requirements have moved on, but i'd love to see facet support in xapian as I think its one of the easier alternative search engines to get working nicely with Drupal.

Go for it.

(Is there a way/should I transfer primary project ownership)?

jeremy’s picture

jeremy commented

> (Is there a way/should I transfer primary project ownership)?

If you wish this done, let me know and I can transfer primary project ownership to Marco for you.

singularo’s picture

singularo
Location Adelaide, AUS
commented

Yes, thanks Jeremy, I assume its not something normal users can do on d.o ?

jeremy’s picture

jeremy commented

> Yes, thanks Jeremy, I assume its not something normal users can do on d.o ?

Done! Congratulations, Marco, you're now the owner of the Xapian project! :)

I granted singularo CVS access.

I simply edited the project and changed the owner, as the project owner you may have also been able to do that -- not sure.

marvil07’s picture

marvil07 commented

Hi Jeremy, Simon,

Great!

It seems you have super-powers ;-), but now I can edit the project node and the cvs access :-)

Thanks!

marvil07’s picture

marvil07 commented
Version: 6.x-1.x-dev » 6.x-2.x-dev

moving to the new branch :-)

marvil07’s picture

marvil07 commented

I going to follow Jeremy suggestion, tracking each effort on different issues.
Keeping this open until opening the issues.

BTW I finally end up committing the D7 port :-), so there will be a tarball available in the following hours.

marvil07’s picture

marvil07 commented

I am going to start with #923752: Integrating with search_api

marvil07’s picture

marvil07 commented
Title: Decide future and integration » [meta] Decide future and integration

Finally I committed #923752: Integrating with search_api :-)

BTW search_api is providing a way to make facets, so I opened #1042694: Implement more like this search api feature with xapian expand terms and #1042688: Implement a facet to focus search for covering it!

Not sure how the other items mentioned on #0 are evolving, but at least we have one implemented ;-)

marvil07’s picture

marvil07 commented

More news on facets :-)

Search API is integrating with Facet API \o/ #1182614: Integrate with Facet API

So, I guess we are in the right direction.

On other news:

  • Thomas is working on Search API this year again as part of GSoC, so the project is pretty active.
  • I participated on some Core Search discussions and people there agree that Search API is a pretty good start to refactor core search. Naturally there are some changes, and it is mainly waiting on the plugin solution core will provide on 8.x

Again, I guess we are in the right direction.

marvil07’s picture

marvil07 commented
Version: 6.x-2.x-dev » 7.x-1.x-dev
marvil07’s picture

marvil07 commented
Title: [meta] Decide future and integration » Decide future and integration
Category: Task » Plan
Status: Active » Fixed

Closing this really late, I think related issues were already created.

In retrospective it seems like search_api was the right move. I hope there will be a D8 version in the following months.

Status: Fixed » Closed (fixed)

Automatically closed - issue fixed for 2 weeks with no activity.