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Questions About Global Site Search

The new Global Site Search plugin looks really great, but I’m a bit wary: I’d always heard that a full site searches tend to consume resources with abandon. Is that something I should be concerned about?

Also, does it search meta data for images etc?

Finally, does it display Gravatars?

Wed, 16 Sep 2009 22:31:05
  • Andrew
    • Champion of Loops

    Hi,

    The Global Site Search plugin just pulls from the post indexer tables. There’s not much added weight.

    Also, does it search meta data for images etc?

    It searches post content (text) and tags.

    Finally, does it display Gravatars?

    The plugin uses the get_avatar() function. If no local avatar is available the gravatar for the user email should be used as a fallback.

    Thanks,

    Andrew

  • jcnjr
    • WP Core Meltdown

    I was excited to give this awesome, long awaited plugin a try! But alas, it will not work for us.

    Apparently it is incompatible with the Simple:stuck_out_tongue:ress Forums WordPress plugin. After installing Global Site Search, our forums were no longer navigable. The 404 "Nothing Found" page got displayed for any and all forums, topics, or search results with URLs such as …

    http://tripawds.com/forums/ask-a-vet/

    http://tripawds.com/forums/share-your-story/palladia

    http://tripawds.com/forums/?forum=all&value=Palladia&type=1&include=1&search=1

    FYI: I have disabled site-search so these links now work.

    PS: I also noticed that it didn’t appear to return results for pages, only posts. Though I may be mistaken there.

    Thanks anyway!

  • Andrew
    • Champion of Loops

    Hiya,

    Apparently it is incompatible with the Simple:stuck_out_tongue:ress Forums WordPress plugin.

    That’s a bit weird. There shouldn’t be any conflicting rewrite rules and it works with all of our other plugins that require rewrite rules. I wonder if the SimplePress handles rewrite rules in a weird way.

    PS: I also noticed that it didn’t appear to return results for pages, only posts. Though I may be mistaken there.

    The post indexer doesn’t currently index pages. This is primarily because tags are tracked for each post indexer item. We’ll see about updating it to index pages as well in the future.

    Thanks,

    Andrew

  • jcnjr
    • WP Core Meltdown

    Thank you for the input. There are no custom rewrite rules required for SimplePress, at least none that must be added to .htaccess file. I also wouldn’t expect Post Indexer to index all forum posts.

    But once Global Site Search was enabled, all forum sub-pages with urls like those above threw the 404 error. Once disabled, all worked fine. Weird indeed. It would be interesting to find out if anyone else running SimplePress Forums can replicate this.

    Anyway, if your taking suggestions for the next version, in addition to indexing pages — and, ahem, investigating SPF compatibility :wink: — a Search All Blogs widget would be nice. Perhaps one that returns results on the main site-search page.

    Thanks again.

    PS: It’s almost like only indexed posts were getting displayed, though I did not test any page other than our forums. Just a thought.

  • Andrew
    • Champion of Loops

    I’m afraid not. Other than this thread there really hasn’t been any interest.

    Note that you can force it to include pages by changing line 185 from this:

    if ($tmp_post->post_type == ‘page’:wink:{

    to something like this:

    if ($tmp_post->post_type == ‘ignore’:wink:{

    Thanks,

    Andrew

  • crsneil
    • Flash Drive

    I’m in the same boat as Jim on this, and it’s frustrating as can be.

    bbpress is not an option, as I need more granular control of my forums because of the nature of my site’s content; that leaves SimplePress as the only viable alternative for a forum that plays nice with WPMU.

    That said, this plugin trashes the nav. I can get to a page in my SPF install that lists the forums, but as soon as I try to open one, I get the 404 error. Disable the search plugin, forums work beautifully.

    And equally frustrating is that for God knows WHAT reason, site-wide search doesn’t appear to be in the Top 5 list of priorities for WPMU. This is the ONLY search plugin I can find that returns the search results I need – namely, a linked list of blog NAMES (no posts, no comments, just blog names) based on the search term.

    So I can either let my users talk to each other, or I can let them search. Sucks to have to decide.

  • crsneil
    • Flash Drive

    Andrew –

    Sorry, I should have marked THAT portion of the post with [sarcasm] and [/sarcasm] tags.

    I’ve heard it expressed elsewhere that a sitewide search for WPMU is something that should have been included in the code right from the ever-popular Square 1.

    My frustration with this current scenario got the better of me.

    Best,

    Neil