Filter on custom fields produces unexpected results

Hi, I have installed FC 2.0.0 RC9b (r1601) on a Joomla 2.5.

Only one problem: I have a list of member profiles I have set up as flexicontent items. I want the first and last name to be filterable by the search filter box in the category list. This works well, until i enter a short word like "May". I have a person with May as last name, so the item should appear, but it doesn't.

Now I checked what happens if I enter "Mille" as a filter, and realised, Mr. Miller does not appear then either.

If I enter "Miller", he does appear though, so the field is actually included in the filter, just not always.

One way it seems the filter is only showing results when the filter word has a certain number of characters, but then again it seems to filter only full words in some cases, I can't see a pattern. If there is any way to get this to work that would be nice to know.

Otherwise it works like a dream - even with multilingual content, great work!

Terry

There has been a backend clean-up about what is marked a filter for category view and what for search view

upcoming final version is more easy to configure filters in backend

-- about what you ask , you speak of search view or category view?

(also when you mark as filter as filterable for search view search-index must be redone ONCE, upcoming version cleanly warns you of this)

you field type is text?

Hi,

- my field type is text, yes
- I have marked the field as filterable in the field configuration
-I use the filter of the category view, which for a text field gives me a text input (like a search field, but it's not the normal search you can find via search module)
- I have no search index at all.

Where in the backend do I have the different possibilities, did I overlook something? One thing with flexicontent is that there are so many possibilities to configure, but that's certainly not a reason to complain.

Best regards,
Terry

I see the confusion

you have not enabled the appearance of the filter YET

-- the search text field that you see in category view is for searching the fields marked as searchable

-- to filter through the field, mark it as filterable in fields management and then go to category configuration and enable it as a filter,

NOTE: to quickly enable it as a filter in ALL categories: DO not select any fields as filters in the category but Go to Global Configuration and UNDER "Content List" select the field there.

Search things have been made more intuitive to configure in upcoming version

NOTE: your filter will appear as a drop-down select, upcoming version has multiple appearance text-range, drop-down select, toggle buttons (like radio), multiple toggle buttons (like checkbox)

Ok. Thank you for the clarification. I am sure ti have enabled the Filter in the config. But as it is a list of people, i would like a Search Box, so this means i have to activate searchable right? This is different to fc for Joomla 1.5 it seems.

I will check and let you know.

By default a text field is not searchable via the search box in category view

After marking it as searchable , you need to go to search Index and click to recalculate search index (ONLY need to do this ONCE after marking a field a searchable or non-searchable)

This is clear stated in upcoming version to avoid confusions (you get a message to update search index)

Ok, thank you for the advice. I am back after testing what you recommended.

I am afraid to say the problem persists.

I checked the "searchable" and even the "advanced searchable" are on for fields firstname and lastname. I first indexed the search index and nothing happened (The search index was still empty). Then I indexed with advanced index and now see data in the search index list.

When searching in the category list, i get the same results

- only whole words are found (roge produces 0 results, only "roger" as a whole word produces two people to appear)

- words with less than 4 characters are still not found (Mr. "May" is not found, if I call him "Mayr", he is found)

The search index seems to only have been made now, so that's certainly an improvement. But there really seems to be a minimum character restriction and a limitation to whole words.

bytekultur wrote: - only whole words are found (roge produces 0 results, only "roger" as a whole word produces two people to appear)

The search is using MySQL full text search to try to find similar results it seems that 'roger' is not similar with 'roge' ?? i will check to see if this can be improved , i think something maybe wrong with query.

- words with less than 4 characters are still not found (Mr. "May" is not found, if I call him "Mayr", he is found)

Minimum word length imposed by your MySQL server is by default: 4-character words minimum, thus words like 'May' are not added to the index !!

See how to fix this on your server by reading this FAQ article:
Changing the minimum word length allowed for searching

Thank you for the answer - the minimum word length makes sense in this case. I will check with the provider if it's possible to change this setting.

The similar words function for the category list seems to be inexistant, or maybe for some reason excluded as after many such tests like roge and roger i have the impression of only finding exact and whole words.

In that case I will leave it for the moment, if you find the reason I am happy to know.

Once you look at the search function I might have some more feedback: I also found irregularities with the search view and search module: if I send a request - let's take "roge" - from the fc search module, the search view and it's results are shown, so there the similar words seem to be found.

Two things I find unexpected there:

- if I send the same request again from the search form in the component's search view, it does NOT produce the same results, no matter what other settings I use, many times it does not produce a result at all. So it seems the search module manages to trigger similar words function, but the component view as well as the search box in category listings mentioned before don't. (for the moment I have fixed it by using the module's output in a html override - this works) This works again only with the standard flexi search plugin, not with the advanced (i have indexed for both)

- the routing for items shown in a category is nonexistant in the search result. If I click on a result connected directly to a menu item (single item view), it is routed to that menu correctly. If I click on a result listed in a category, the link points to home, there is no routing into the detail view of that menu item.

Sorry for the long "complaint list", I hope it helps.
Really, apart from the search I am a big fan of FlexiContent and I think that is the only thing that needs improving, the rest is super advanced and gives Joomla some real extra value.

Currently work on finishing multiple appearances of filters is being finished:

Apperances of filters as:
-- single drop down select (we have already)
-- single text input

-- text ranges
-- drop-down select ranges
-- date ranges
-- single toggle buttons
-- multiple toggle buttons (you see these in some eshops etc)

and many other improvements that we feel are enough to announce final version

We will be looking into what you describe after next update, please note that some of what you describe are issues of configuration, we made improvements in making configuration easier for upcoming version, so please wait to test upcoming public package, before reporting more bugs on search feature or asking configuration questions

Thanks for feedback