This is something I’ve been building toward for a while now. Sueetie Search is our new Lucene.NET-based search engine and it’s online for your review at Sueetie.com. Sueetie Search will be available in Gummy Bear 1.3.
Sueetie Search retrieves content from all site applications: blogs, wikis, media galleries and forums. You can filter by application type, by field, and search with Lucene’s rich query language of wildcards, proximity searching, full boolean support, and more.
The Sueetie Search screenshot below pretty much says it all. We’re searching for “Vermont” in blogs, forums, wikis, media album names and media content on a single form. And for fellow geeks who appreciate what’s going on behind-the-scenes, we’ve got ourselves a search engine that searches content from BlogEngine.NET, YetAnotherForum.NET, Gallery Server Pro and ScrewTurn Wiki in a single Lucene Index. That’s very cool. Each application type is noted in the search results and even has their own icon.
If you want to experience another Sueetie Search site, you can visit my business site at DBVT.COM and the new “Search” menu tab. Since DBVT.COM is built on the Sueetie Framework we see another example of how the new Lucene engine searches across multiple applications: my BlogEngine.NET blog, ScrewTurn Wiki Services Area, my Gallery Server Pro photo album titles and all photos. So if I wanted to go directly to my Fall 2008 photo album, for instance, I can type it in, select “Photo Albums,” click and go!
Below is the wiki Feature Rich page repost on Sueetie Search, which you are by now accustomed to seeing on announcement posts like this one. A Patterns and Origins page is in the works, as well as more blog posts on the technical aspects of the Lucene-based Sueetie Search engine.
The tried-and-true “test” search will retrieve content from various Sueetie.com applications, or use “Vermont” as shown above. For more advanced searching, remember that boolean operators (AND, OR, NOT) are UPPERCASE which should be enough to get you started.
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Sueetie Search
Sueetie Search is a Lucene-based content indexing and search engine that gives you the ability to retrieve content from all site applications. A single query searches all community blogs, forums, wikis and media galleries, or only those you specify. Because it's Lucene-based, Sueetie Search supports a rich query syntax which includes
- Searching by Field - title:"Do it right" AND right
- Wildcards - test*
- Fuzzy search - roam~
- Proximity searching - "jakarta apache"~10
- Full Boolean searching and, or, not...
- More
The Lucene Query Syntax FAQ is located at the Apache Lucene Wiki.
Indexing Site Content: Administration Form
Before content in your community blogs, forums, wiki or media galleries can be searched it must first be indexed, or added to the search database. The search database is located by default in your site /util/index directory. This location, along with other properties, is configurable in the Sueetie Search.config file located in your site root directory. The Lucene index can be in any location accessible to your website.
You can index your site content using the Sueetie Search Administration form shown below. Here you have the option of indexing your entire site or index site content added or updated based on a specific date. When the date field is left blank and complete reindex is performed, otherwise content added since the date entered are indexed.
A message informs you when you update the index that the results can be viewed in the Sueetie Event Log. Here are sample Event Log index results.
You can also use the Search Administrative form to view your site's current index stats.
Indexing Site Content: Background Index Update Task
The Sueetie Search Administration Index form works in conjunction with a background task that performs incremental updates on a frequency you specify. The default frequency is every 30 minutes and is set in the /Tasks.config file. You can learn more about Sueetie Background Tasks Architecture here. As with the Search Administration form, results of the background index task are shown in the Sueetie Event Log.
Searching
As described earlier, Sueetie Search supports a rich query language that enables you to search all site content regardless of its application origination. By default all application content is searched, or you can filter by application type.
A description of the following search query will help you get more from Lucene searching syntax as used with Sueetie Search. The query is
Title:"gummy bear 1.2" AND Body:download
This search demonstrates how to search by field. Sueetie Search fields are
- Title
- Body
- Tags
- Categories
- Username
We are using the boolean term "AND" to include both criteria in our search results. In both cases, case sensitivity is important. Boolean terms, AND, OR, NOT are entered uppercase. All field names, Title, Body, etc, when used, are also case sensitive with the first letter capitalized.
Customizing Sueetie Search
The Sueetie Search engine logic and patterns are straightforward. The engine is based on the latest Lucene.NET source code builds of Version 2.9. Sueetie Search can be extended to search any applications you add to the Sueetie Framework. It can also work with various non-HTML document types to provide a wide variety of Community Search solutions. I will be providing more technical information for developers about Sueetie Search in the Developer Resources.