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--- videos:combining_search_types [2020/07/16 18:25] – created demiankatz
+++ videos:combining_search_types [2020/08/07 13:30] – [Transcript] demiankatz
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 ===== Transcript =====
-// This is a raw machine-generated transcript; it will be cleaned up in the near future. //
+// This is a raw machine-generated transcript; it will be cleaned up as time permits. //
-// Coming soon! //
+ in last month's video we set up a web
+index um and so we now have a you find
+instance that has both a catalog of
+bibliographic records and an index of
+web pages which brings up the challenge
+of how to allow users to search both of
+these things fortunately if you find
+includes several mechanisms for
+combining searches and these mechanisms
+can be used separately or in combination
+depending on your needs so in today's
+video I'm going to show you how to
+combine searches side-by-side how to
+create combined options in the search
+options drop down here and how to use
+tabs to switch between multiple sets of
+search results on the fly
+we'll start with combined searching
+obviously one of the challenges of
+having many different types of resources
+to search is figuring out how to present
+them to your user and many libraries
+have found that an effective way of
+combining different types of search
+results is the so-called bento box
+approach where a single set of search
+terms reveals a number of boxes of
+categorized content and then the user
+can navigate into whichever set of
+results are most appropriate for them
+view fiims combined searching mode
+provides a simple way of implementing
+this type of bento box searching so I'm
+going to set that up first to allow us
+to search our Web index and our
+bibliographic index side-by-side so here
+I am at the terminal in the view finder
+Ector II and as with any other defined
+configuration I'm going to start by
+copying the default configuration which
+is the 'big / view find / combined I and
+I into my local config you find
+directory establishing a local copy that
+I can edit and then edit that file as
+all you find configuration files
+combined ini has lots and lots of
+comments in it describing all of the
+contents of the file there are a handful
+of reserved sections in here which allow
+you to set global settings for combined
+searching and the remainder of the
+sections each define one search box that
+will show up in the combined results so
+these comments at the top summarize
+everything once I get into the guts of
+the file there's a basic searches
+section which defines which search types
+the user can choose so for example if
+you wanted to allow a fielded title
+author or subject search across all of
+your search boxes you could uncomment
+some of these options to make that
+possible but it's important to keep in
+mind that when you're combining search
+results you can only turn on options
+that are supported in all of the boxes
+so for the purposes of combining web
+results and bibliographic results having
+search types to select doesn't make any
+sense because the fields are very
+different so I'm going to leave all of
+this commented out but if I were in a
+different scenario where I wanted to
+search two different kinds of things
+that both have titles I would have the
+option of turning on title searching
+which would allow the users to do more
+focus searching in their results on the
+home page section here allows you to
+turn on contents on the main home screen
+of combined searching by default that
+screen is just going to show a search
+box but by using content block plugins
+which are described in more detail in
+searches I and I you can add other
+content there be it sort of a welcome
+message or details pulled in from other
+parts of you find
+the layout section controls how the
+boxes in your combined search are
+distributed on the screen you can set
+how many columns of boxes that you want
+to show and how you want to weight the
+distribution of search boxes across the
+columns so for example if you had three
+columns and six types of searches you
+could weigh that the left or to the
+right or you could evenly spread it
+across the columns in the simple two
+column example I'm about to show you
+none of this will matter we'll just get
+two boxes side by side but in more
+complex setups you may find these
+Advanced Settings helpful for
+controlling the priority and arrangement
+of all of the search options before I
+get into the boxes themselves of which
+there are a few examples here I wanted
+to go down to the very bottom and point
+out that there's also this
+recommendation module section which you
+can use to embed recommendations above
+or below all of the combined searches so
+again most of the time recommendation
+modules work best in the context of a
+particular type of search but there are
+some situations where you may want to
+augment the overall result screen and
+this setting allows you to do that but
+now on to the the really juicy part of
+this file which are these sections
+defining search boxes
+for each of these the section name
+within the configuration file is
+actually the name of one of you find
+search backends the code that actually
+retrieves search results so any existing
+search back-end can be embedded into
+combined searches by just creating a
+matching section name so the example
+configuration includes sections for the
+summon and EDS services obviously since
+we are not using those services in this
+example we want to comment those out but
+we're going to leave the solar section
+in place because that's where our
+bibliographic records live and we also
+want to add a solar web section for the
+website because Solar web is the name of
+the back-end that handles web results
+within the section we need to provide a
+label which will be used to title the
+search results within the box we could
+optionally include a sub-label which
+just provides some extra messaging
+within the box if we set the more link
+that will provide a link from the
+combined search into the full result set
+for that box and in theory we can limit
+the number of results that show up so by
+default we get 10 but if we wanted to
+have more or fewer we can adjust the
+limit here another optional setting is
+the Ajax setting which if we set to true
+will cause these search results to be
+retrieved asynchronously from the rest
+of the page and Ajax loading of combined
+results can be really helpful
+particularly when you have a large
+number of boxes or if some of your boxes
+are being loaded from slow third-party
+services because if we don't use Ajax
+all of the searches have to be exit
+in processed before the overall results
+page will load which could be very slow
+and we'll certainly be dragged down by
+whatever service runs the slowest but if
+we use Ajax on some of the boxes it will
+cause the main screen to pop in fairly
+quickly and then additional results to
+load in as they become available
+so I've now set up the basic combined
+search settings or the bibliographic and
+website indexes let's see how that looks
+you can get to your combined search
+screen by simply adding the word
+combines to your you find URL and as I
+mentioned as its configured by default
+the home page of the combined search is
+just a search box but you can augment
+this by turning on content block
+settings in combine ini so let's search
+for web and see what the combined search
+results look like as you can see we've
+got two boxes of results on the Left we
+have catalog results and on the right we
+have website results I'm also going to
+refresh the page one more time and draw
+your attention to the website area here
+just to highlight how that Ajax loading
+works so as you can see there is a link
+of the word loading here before the full
+results actually popped into place so if
+you're using combined search it is
+common that you would want this to be
+the first thing that users encounter
+when they come to your site because it
+offers the broadest view into your
+content right now because I haven't
+changed default configurations if I go
+back to the home page of you find the
+default view by URL I end up back in the
+bibliographic record search but if I
+want to change that it's very easy
+I just need to edit my local config you
+find a big dot ini file and there's a
+setting in here called default module
+which defines the name of a controller
+that will be loaded by default from the
+defined home page this defaults to
+search which searches the bibliographic
+index but if I simply change this
+setting from search to combine and then
+refresh my home page here now my default
+you find URL is taking me to the
+combined search and you can use this for
+really anything you want to change to
+make your default you find behavior so
+for example if I wanted my website
+search to be the default I could have
+changed that to web etc so it's great
+that we can now search these two
+different services at the same time but
+our search experience can now become a
+little bit confusing unless we do some
+additional configuration so you'll
+notice on this screen my search box up
+here uh searches the combined search but
+if I hit this more options link here and
+delve into the bibliographic record
+search now I have the bibliographic
+record search box
+I have no obvious way to get back to my
+combined search and so I've changed
+context but within an area of the screen
+that looks like it should remain
+consistent similarly if I delve into the
+web results I now have an identical
+looking search box to what I had on the
+combined screen but if I search here I'm
+searching the web results and I have to
+hit the back button to return to my
+combine searches obviously this is going
+to cause people to get lost in your site
+but fortunately there's a simple
+solution which is the combined search
+box once again there is simply a
+configuration file that controls the way
+if you find search box works and you can
+manage that in the usual way we'll copy
+the default version config / beautifying
+/ search box
+ini into our local config design
+directory and we'll edit that once again
+we are faced with a file full of
+configuration settings and comments but
+the thing that I want to mainly draw
+your attention to is this top setting
+combined handlers which defaults to
+false if we set this to true it's going
+to create a uniform search box that
+works the same everywhere in the view
+hindsight and encompasses all of the
+options from all of the different search
+backends so we need to turn that on and
+then scroll down to the combined
+handlers section here we need to
+activate all of the search backends that
+we want to show options for in our
+search drop-down so the example
+configuration here shows solar and
+summon results but we want solar and
+website results so I'm going to change
+the summon example to solar web with a
+label of website so you'll notice that
+the way these settings are set up you
+have groups of type target label and
+group it's very important that you copy
+all four settings when you add options
+here so that each of these named
+settings type target label and group
+have the same number of values because
+otherwise the settings can get
+out of sync and cause weird results so
+when you're adding things just be sure
+you copy everything and fill in all of
+the settings and I'm going to do just
+that because I need to add one more set
+of options here because we want to
+include the combined search option in
+addition to the individual catalog and
+website options so a couple more things
+to clarify here there are two values
+that we can put in the type for each of
+these groups of handler settings view
+fine means we're working with an
+internal view fine search back end and
+that we need to get all of our options
+from you finds internal code and that's
+the most commonly used setting so in
+that case the target value is the name
+of a search back-end and the label is
+what we want to display as a label for
+that option within the drop down the
+group setting is optional if you leave
+it false nothing will happen but if you
+have a very large number of handlers in
+play and you want to group them within
+the drop down into labelled groups you
+can provide a label here but I recommend
+leaving that false in all but rare
+situations the other type of handler you
+can set up is an external handler which
+allows you to actually link into
+searches on sites outside of you find in
+this instance when a user performs a
+search you find we'll just take the URL
+you provide as the target of the
+external resource and append their
+search terms to the end of that so in
+this example we can perform a Google
+search directly from inside view fine
+obviously there's not really a good
+reason why you would want to do that
+most of the time but if you're
+integrating view find with other local
+systems and you want to make them
+searchable this is one way to achieve
+that that kind of linking
+some other settings in this file that
+might potentially be of interest are
+include alpha browse which allows you to
+embed links to you finds alphabetical
+browse search within the main search box
+that's a topic we haven't covered yet
+but we may in the future and then the
+remaining settings have to do with
+grouping options together and are
+usually safe to ignore in any case now
+that I've turned all of this on if i
+refresh my combined search you'll now
+see that I have a drop down menu so here
+is my combined search here is my catalog
+search and under the catalog search are
+all of the catalog specific search
+options that are provided through view
+fines internal configuration you know
+the options from searches I and I then
+we have the website and then at the
+bottom that Google example and as you
+can see it's under a label called other
+sites because of the group setting so if
+I wanted to group all of these things
+here under a label that looked like this
+I can use the group setting to
+accomplish that but importantly we now
+have consistent search behavior if I
+click on more options on my catalog
+search it now shows that I'm doing a
+catalog search I have a consistent set
+of controls if I go back and I click
+into my web result again now it shows
+that I'm doing a website search but all
+of the same options are available
+everywhere so I strongly recommend
+configuring a combined search box at the
+same time that you set up a combined
+search and then there is just one last
+detail which is optional than useful
+which is turning on search tabs which
+just provides another way for users to
+navigate between different types of
+search results I'll go back to my
+terminal and I will once again edit my
+main config.ini file
+in this file there is a section called
+search tabs which by default is all
+commented out but you can here create
+mappings from search back-end names to
+labels in order to turn on tabs in your
+search results so I'm going to uncomment
+the solar equals catalog option I'm
+going to add combined equals combined
+and solar web website so that it's
+possible to tab between all three search
+options the combined and the two
+individual so just by adding those three
+lines of configuration if I now go back
+to my search results refresh though I
+now have tabs on my search box and if I
+click on them they will switch me back
+and forth between the three different
+search modes retaining my search terms
+so with all three of these things in
+place we have access to every kind of
+search from every page of you find
+through this drop-down menu here once we
+perform a search we can navigate to
+different kinds of searches with a
+single click through the tabs and by
+configuring the combined search we have
+this high-level view of all of our
+search results for multiple locations on
+a single screen utilizing all of these
+things together we offer our users very
+flexible access to the content that
+we're providing it can of course get a
+lot more complicated as you add a lot
+more content figuring out how to label
+your boxes and what kinds of messaging
+to use can be quite a challenge but at
+least few find provides the technical
+framework to easily experiment with
+different arrangements and different
+labels and make all of your stuff
+visible
+that is all I have for this month but I
+thank you for your time and I will have
+more next time thanks again
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