Multisearch and ActionView Questions

Ruby Apps Ferret
1

Hey all,

I had some pressing questions about acts_as_ferret and had not heard
about this mailing list yet, so I contacted Jens directly and he was
kind enough to answer my questions. I would like to post our exchange
here and continue the dialogue in hopes that it’s useful to someone
else out there.

Question #1:
How should I be setting up my form helper?

Jens’ Response:
There’s nothing special to do here - just use a normal text_field.
I usually have a separate Search model class to back my search forms.

Question #2:
Rather than defining self.full_text_search on each of my 12 models, I
am hoping for a cleaner solution, perhaps a module that I can mixin
somehow. Also I am pondering the idea of having a separate
SearchController so that my search methods are in one place as well.
Do you have any guides/suggestions for handling multiple models in a
DRY fashion?

Jens’ Response:
See above, either create one Search model to handle all searches,
or use
inheritance/mix ins to handle the common things like paging.
Depends on
how your search forms look - if they’re all the same one Search model
should be enough - just parametrize it with the class you want to
search
on.

Question #3:
Where exactly does AAF keep the generated index?

Jens’ Response:
By default aaf creates the indices in directories named
RAILS_ROOT/index/RAILS_ENV/model_name.

################ NEW QUESTIONS ###################

Re: Search Model

  1. Is this just an Active Record object or do I need to set up a
    database for it as well (if so then with what columns)?
  2. Do I need to set up table relationships to the others (has_many)?
  3. How do I boost fields within a multisearch statement?

Re: Search Display

I’ve seen countless examples of pagination code for AAF, but Im still
not sure how to write the view code for my search results. You can
read more about the issues I am having, along with code examples here
=> Parked at Loopia

Thanks again to Jens and the helpful people of this community. You rock!

2

On 4/10/07, Steven G. [email protected] wrote:

Helpful Information
Thanks again to Jens and the helpful people of this community. You rock!

Hi Steven,

Thanks for taking the time to post this. This is a great example of
how even new users can contribute to an open source project community.
It is a pleasure to help users like yourself.

As for your questions below, you may have sabotaged yourself by doing
the right thing and posting your questions and answers above. I
suspect Jens skipped over this email after seeing the initial part of
the post without seeing the questions down the bottom. Usually he is
very fast to answer (a lot better than me ;-). You might have been
better off sending two separate emails.

Anyway, I don’t use acts_as_ferret myself but I’ll do my best to
answer your questions. Jens, please correct me if I’m wrong.

################ NEW QUESTIONS ###################

Re: Search Model

  1. Is this just an Active Record object or do I need to set up a
    database for it as well (if so then with what columns)?

I think Jens just uses this model to store the search parameters.
(Although you may want to record searches which can be really useful.
I’d just do this in a text file though.) If I am correct then no,
there is no need to set this up in the database.

  1. Do I need to set up table relationships to the others (has_many)?

I guess the answer to the first question answers this one. The Search
model wouldn’t have any relationships with any of the acts_as_ferret
searchable models. You would either parameterize it so signify which
model it should be searching or implement it as a mixin to add the
required methods (ie full_text_search and paging methods) to your
searchable models.

  1. How do I boost fields within a multisearch statement?

I’m not sure what a multisearch statement is. Perhaps multisearch is a
method in acts_as_ferret. Anyway, here is an example of how you can
boost fields in acts_as_ferret;

http://www.ruby-forum.com/topic/96411

Perhaps you already knew this and you are talking about boosting
fields in the actual search query. You can boost portions of a query
with the ‘^’ notation. For example, if we are searching for ‘Ferret’,
we’d like to make sure that it is the ‘Ruby’ kind and not the ‘pet’
kind. We could do it like this;

‘+Ferret^10.0 Ruby^0.1 -pet’

I hope I’ve answered your question. There is a lot more information
about Ferret’s query language in the O’Reilly Ferret shortcut;

Re: Search Display

I’ve seen countless examples of pagination code for AAF, but Im still
not sure how to write the view code for my search results. You can
read more about the issues I am having, along with code examples here
=> Parked at Loopia

Thanks again to Jens and the helpful people of this community. You rock!

Sorry, without knowing acts_as_ferret I can’t see anything wrong with
your example. Hopefully Jens will be able to help you with this one.

Cheers,
Dave