Dyndle Search

Prerequisites

Solr

The Dyndle search module is built to be used with the Solr search platform. To be able to use it, an installation of Solr is needed on the content management server. The link below contains detailed instructions on the installation and configuration of Solr.

Apache Solr Quickstart

SI4T

The Search Integration 4 Tridion project is used to index Tridion pages in the Solr platform. It provides a set of template building blocks to be used on any page that you want to index in search. The link below contains instructions for installing and using SI4T.

SI4T Github Wiki

Install

Add a reference to the NuGet package: Dyndle.Modules.Search. Then provide the module with the endpoint of the Solr client. This can be done using the BaseUrl config setting in the web config. Refer to the Configuring Dyndle chapter for an example value and all the other settings that can be used for customization of the functionality of the search module.

Using the SI4T TBBs

After having installed the TBBs from SI4T you can use them on the page templates of pages that you would want to be searchable. This will provide Solr with the indexing data of a page when you publish it using that page template. You can add a new TBB to a page template using the Tridion Sites Template Builder. For a detailed guide on using the template builder refer to the template builder documentation. You will also need to modify the Tridion deployer to handle the TBBs. Instructions on how to do this can be found here.

Adding a search results page

To view the results of a search query on your website, you will need to create a page that points to a controller that retrieves the data from Solr. There are two ways to achieve this, using the built in controller from the search module or using your own custom controller.

Search module controller

The Dyndle search module provides a controller out of the box to retrieve data from Solr. All you need to do is create a page in Tridion with a component on it which specifies the routing to that controller. You can use the Modules Metadata Template for the page template and the Search Result List for the component schema, which were installed with the Dyndle templates. Provide the following values for the page template:

Field	Value
area	Search
controller	Search
action	List

You also need to provide a value for the view field. Create a view that uses Dyndle.Modules.Search.Models.SearchResults as a model and set the name of the view in this field. You can then render the results of the query in this view.

You can also use a custom model for this by configuring the Search.ResponseItemModel setting in the web config. The search result will then try to bind the returned items to your own model. Below is an example model to use as a starting point.

[ContentModel("searchResultList", true)]
    public class DyndleSearchResults : Dyndle.Modules.Search.Models.SearchResults, IHasPageSize
    {
        [TextField]
        public string Heading { get; set; }

        // This is really not the results per page but a limit for search results.
        [NumberField(FieldName = "maximumItems")]
        public double ResultsPerPage { get; set; }

        [NumberField(FieldName = "itemsPerPage")]
        public double ItemsPerPage { get; set; }

        public int ValidCurentPage { get; set; }

        [TextField]
        public string FacetField { get; set; }

    }

Custom controller

It is also possible to use your own controller for handling the search request. This way you can add custom logic to the search request. To do this you need to provide the routing to your controller and action in the Modules Metadata Template. Set the controller and the action to the names you used and set the area to the area name registered in the CoreAreaRegistration class. Below is an example controller to get started with.

public class MySearchController : ModuleControllerBase
    {
        private readonly IContentProvider _contentProvider;

        public MySearchController(IContentProvider contentProvider, ILogger logger) : base(contentProvider, logger)
        {
            this._contentProvider = contentProvider;
        }

        [ChildActionOnly]
        public ActionResult GetSearchResults(DyndleSearchResults entity)
        {
            var searchLinkResolver = DependencyResolver.Current.GetService<ISearchLinkResolver>();
            return View("GetSearchResults", entity);
        }
    }

Html helper

The Dyndle search module also provides a Html helper class that can be used to retrieve search results in dynamic locations in your website. This way you don't have to create a page with a search component in Tridion. There are two helper functions you can use:

@Html.Search(query)

This function takes a query and returns a SearchResults object. You can then render the results manually.

@Html.RenderSearchResults(viewName, query)

This functions also takes a viewname, which can be uses to directly render the result of the query in the specified view. This way you can reuse the view in other places in your webapp.