Documentation Mailing Lists FAQ Frequently Asked Questions v2

How to setup searchform? Author: Honza, updated by Jakub honza.malik@ecn.cz

Related Categories: Slice Administrator Search   Comments :552 Add Comment

It is possible to create searchform manually in HTML. There is no possibility to create it automaticaly as it is known from AA v1.2., yet. Special possibilities for searching in multiple slice at once, searching in discussions, choosing keywords from hierarchical constants and using a multiple select box are described at other places in this FAQ.

Form example:

 
<form action="index.shtml" method="get" name="sf" id="sf">
  Search Author:   <input type="text" name="conds[0][created_by......]"><br>
  Search in Headline and Fulltext:  <input type="text" name="conds[1][value]">
                                    <input type="hidden" name="conds[1][operator]" value="LIKE">
                                    <input type="hidden" name="conds[1][headline........]" value="1">
                                    <input type="hidden" name="conds[1][full_text.......]" value="1">
  <br>
  <input type="hidden" name="sort[0][headline........]" value="a">
  <input type="submit" value="Search" >
</form> 

• The action atribute on first row points to some file, where slice.php3 script is included (by SSI)
  

• There are two visible search fields on the form --- each of them uses a bit different syntax - conds[0] uses the simplified and conds[1] the extended syntax.

• The conditions are allways joined by AND operator --- items must allways pass all specified conditions.

conds --- simplified syntax

• search only in one field for that specified phrase
  

• use standard searching operator "LIKE" --- the search phrase may be anywhere in the middle of any word (e.g. the phrase "los" will get items with field content "los", "Carlos" or "lost")

conds --- extended syntax

The extended syntax sets an [operator], [value] and one or more [field_id] for each condition. See conds[1] in the example.

[value]

Contains the search phrase (like conds[1][value]="Prague"). Usually this is the only visible text box (<input type="text" name="conds[1][value]">). The search phrase may be a boolean expression, but you don"t need to think about it if you are using the standard LIKE [operator].

The phrase may contain ANDs, ORs, parenthesis ({[]}) and NOT. When the user gives apple OR cherry, she will get all items containing any or both of the two in any of the fields specified by [field_id] (see further).

Spaces are considered as AND:

Prague Spring becomes Prague AND Spring

With the standard LIKE operator this works fine: it finds all items containing both Prague and Spring at any place (not necessarily Prague space Spring).

Hyphen is considered as AND NOT if not between two letters:

North-West remains as it is, but
North -West becomes North AND NOT West because of the space on the left of the hyphen

To avoid this behavior, use quotes or single quotes:

"Prague Spring" or "North -West"

[operator]

If you don't specify it, the default operator is LIKE. You can change the default by using the defaultCondsOperator parameter (e.g. defaultCondsOperator=RLIKE). Other posibilities are:

date modifiers

Date values are stored in the database as UNIX timestamps (no. of seconds since 1.1.1970). You can use modifiers to convert it from human format. The modificators are written before a comparison operator separated by colon (like "d:>="). The possibilities are:

[field_id]

Specify the fields to be searched through by their IDs.

sort

<input type="hidden" name="sort[0][headline........]" value="a">
<input type="hidden" name="sort[1][full_text.......]" value="d">


The value is "a" for ascending and "d" for descending order. The items are sorted first by sort[0], second by sort[1] etc.
If no sort[] variable is defined, items are sorted by Publish date - descending.

It is possible to sort items not only by the value, but there is possibility to sort by 'priority' for the fields which uses 'constants' (Slice Admin -> Fields -Edit -> Constants) - like category field:

<input type="hidden" name="sort[0][category........]" value="1">
<input type="hidden" name="sort[1][unspecified.....]" value="9">


The value is "1" for ascending sorting by priority and "9" for descending order.

See another example on the APC Demo Site, where publish date field is used.

Last Edit: Aug 17 2011

<aafaq id=1769> ~ToDo: 1769 How to setup searchform? </aafaq> 

This FAQ interface was developed by Jason at Commons.ca

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