Template Tags

Searching is currently limited to a single index for either provider. Algolia supports searching multiple indexes out of the box, but Meilisearch does not, and requires additional steps to support multi-index searching. Thus, for the time being, searching is limited to 1 index if using the EE template tag.

BoldMinded can not offer support on how to construct queries. Filtering can be very complex and as you can see in the example below each provider has a unique syntax. We have added support for both, so long as you construct the query correctly and have properly set the fields in the respective providers to be filterable or faceted fields (the most common mistake is querying a field that is not set to be filterable). If you are experiencing an issue, check your ExpressionEngine developer logs.

The search template tags are intended for simple queries and results display. If you need users to be able to select multiple facets to filter the result set dynamically, like you're used to seeing on ecommerce sites such as Zappos, we highly recommend using a JavaScript based search component.

Due to the complex nature of the search parameters, they are not defined as native EE tag parameters. There will be too many parsing issues. For this reason Dexter looks for a specific search_filters tag pair and uses the contents of that tag as the search filter.

Searching

For more information on how to use the search filter refer to the Meilisearch docs.

For more information on how to use the search filter refer to the Algolia search docs.

{% set results = craft.dexter.search({
    index: 'demo_collections',
    filter: [],
    perPage: 50,
}) %}

{% if results %}
    <ul>
        {% for result in results %}
            <li>{{ result.title }}</li>
        {% endfor %}
    </ul>
{% else %}
    <p>No results found.</p>
{% endif %}

There are differences in how each provider handles search parameters and faceting. We can't provide all examples or support querying. For example, the perPage parameter is unique to Algolia. Use the limit parameter as noted above for Meilisearch. Also note in the Meilisearch example you can sort the results at run time by adding the sort filter. Algolia does not support similar functionality. You would need to add dateCreated as a sortableAttribute , then add to the ranking setting asc(dateCreated). If you export the Algolia index settings with Dexter you should see the sortableAttributes and ranking attributes in the json file.

"sortableAttributes": [
    "dateCreated"
]
"ranking": [
    "desc(entry_date)",
    "typo",
    "geo",
    "words",
    "filters",
    "proximity",
    "attribute",
    "exactness"
 ],

Using craft.entries to display results

If the craft.dexter.search tag is not rendering as you expect, perhaps because of how the data is structured in the index, you can use the idsOnly parameter to set an ids variable to filter the craft.entries tag with, then you have access to anything and everything related to the entry. This is a perfectly viable approach - let a powerful search engine do the hard work and return a small set of IDs, which you can then use to display the result.

If you are not using the idsOnly parameter, remember that the variables in the result are the properties you have indexed in Algolia or Meilisearch, so it may not align exactly with what you normally expect to see in a craft.entries result.

{% set ids = craft.dexter.search({
    index: 'demo_collections',
    term: 'empire',
    filter: [],
    perPage: 50,
    idsOnly: true,
}) %}

{% set entries = craft.entries.section('collection').uid(ids).all() %}

{% if entries %}
    <ul>
        {% for result in entries %}
            <li>{{ result.title }}</li>
        {% endfor %}
    </ul>
{% else %}
    <p>No results found.</p>
{% endif %}