Solr module

The Solr module uses the  Apache Solr  search platform to index and crawl Magnolia content. Solr is a standalone enterprise search server with a REST like API.

The Magnolia Solr bundle consists of two modules:

• Content Indexer: Indexes Magnolia workspaces. It can also crawl a published website.
• Search Provider: Provides templates for displaying Solr search results on the site and faceted search components.

Solr uses the Lucene library for full-text indexing and provides faceted search, distributed search and index replication. You can use Solr to index content in an event-based or action-based fashion. The module from version 5.0 is compatible with Solr5.3, older versions of the module are compatible with Solr4.

Installing

Maven is the easiest way to install the modules. Add the following dependencies to your bundle:

<dependency>
  <groupId>info.magnolia.solr</groupId>
  <artifactId>magnolia-content-indexer</artifactId>
  <version>5.0.3</version>
</dependency>

<dependency>
  <groupId>info.magnolia.solr</groupId>
  <artifactId>magnolia-solr-search-provider</artifactId>
  <version>5.0.3</version>
</dependency>

• magnolia-content-indexer.jar
• magnolia-solr-search-provider.jar
• magnolia-solr-uninstall.jar
• magnolia-solr-search-provider-bundle-5.0.3.zip(contains content indexer, search provider and third-party libraries)

Installing Apache Solr

Apache Solr is a standalone search server. You need the server in addition to the Magnolia Solr modules.

Download Apache Solr and extract the zip to your computer.

Installing Solr 5

Create Magnolia config set and configuring a schema and solrconfig

A schema file specifies what fields the Magnolia content can contain, how those fields are added to the index, and how they are queried. https://cwiki.apache.org/confluence/display/solr/Documents%2C+Fields%2C+and+Schema+Design

A SolrRequestHandler is a Solr Plugin that defines the logic executed for any request. https://wiki.apache.org/solr/SolrRequestHandler

Create new magnolia config set by duplicating $SOLR_HOME/server/solr/configsets/data_driven_schema_configs folder and name it magnolia_data_driven_schema_configs ($SOLR_HOME/server/solr/configsets/magnolia_data_driven_schema_configs).

Download the magnolia example configuration files (based on Solr data_driven_schema_configs https://cwiki.apache.org/confluence/display/solr/Config+Sets) and overwrite the default files in newly created magnolia_data_driven_schema_configs/conf:

• managed-schema
• solrconfig.xml

Starting Apache Solr and creating new core based on Magnolia config set

Go to the $SOLR_HOME/bin , start Solr server and create new core called magnolia 

cd $SOLR_HOME/bin
./solr start
./solr create_core -c magnolia -d magnolia_data_driven_schema_configs

This type of startup works for testing and development purposes. For production installation see Taking Solr to Production.

Installing Solr 4

Configuring a schema and solrconfig

A schema file specifies what fields the Magnolia content can contain, how those fields are added to the index, and how they are queried. An ExtractingRequestHandler extracts searchable fields from Magnolia pages.

Download the configuration files and overwrite the default files in  $SOLR_HOME/example/solr/collection1/conf/ :

• schema.xml
• solrconfig.xml

solr/
  bin/
  contrib/
  dist/
  docs/
  example/
    solr/
      collection1/
        conf/
          schema.xml
          solrconfig.xml
  licenses/

Starting Apache Solr

Go to the example directory and start Solr.

cd $SOLR_HOME/example
java -jar start.jar

This type of startup works for testing and development purposes. For production installation see Taking Solr to Production.

What's new in Solr Search Provider module version 5.0.2

Fixed the issue of two indexers/crawlers mutually overwriting the resulting index when indexing the same content. For example when one indexer was for indexing the English translation and other one for indexing the German translation.  MGNLEESOLR-102 - Getting issue details... STATUS

Problem was caused by using jcr uuid(indexers) and url(crawlers) as unique identifier for solr indexes. To fix this issue changes in solrconfig.xml and  managed-schema were required.

• <uniqueKey> in managed-schema was changed to uuid
• default value for unique key field was changed to uuid in info.magnolia.search.solrsearchprovider.logic.providers.FacetedSolrSearchProvider
• solrconfig.xml now generates uuid field from combination of type and id fields. https://wiki.apache.org/solr/Deduplication method is used for generating the uuid. For more details see the change in code diff.

Update to 5.0.2

Option 1:

If you don't plan to index same content by two different indexers or crawlers then you don't need to update your solrconfig.xml and managed-schema for your solr core. Only change what you need to do is add uniqueKeyField property with value id into your solr sear result page.

Option 2:

Use new solrconfig.xml and managed-schema configuration files for your solr core and for $SOLR_HOME/server/solr/configsets/magnolia_data_driven_schema_config. 

It's needed to recreate all Solr indexes, because of the changes in configuration files. Probably the easiest way to do it is recreate the solr core and then retrigger indexing int Magnolia.

1. Use new solrconfig.xml and  managed-schema configuration files for $SOLR_HOME/server/solr/configsets/magnolia_data_driven_schema_config Magnolia config set. 

2. Delete  magnolia core an create it again

   cd $SOLR_HOME/bin
   ./solr delete -c magnolia
   ./solr create_core -c magnolia -d magnolia_data_driven_schema_configs

3. Retrigger the indexers, by changing their property indexed to false 

What's new in Solr Search Provider module version 5.0

Solr Search Provider module version 5.0 brings support to Solr 5 (officially tested with version 5.3.1).

Full changelog for version 5.0 https://jira.magnolia-cms.com/browse/MGNLEESOLR/fixforversion/18141

Regarding the changes in the module it's recommended completely recreate the Solr indexes after to upgrade to version 5.0.

API changes

org.apache.solr.client.solrj.SolrServer is deprecated and was replaced by org.apache.solr.client.solrj.SolrClient in solr-solrj 5.x library. Because of that info.magnolia.search.solrsearchprovider.MagnoliaSolrBridge#getSolrServer method was changed to info.magnolia.search.solrsearchprovider.MagnoliaSolrBridge#getSolrClient method.

What's new in Solr Search Provider module version 3.0

Solr Search Provider module version 3.0 delivers the following key fixes and enhancements:

• Module doesn't depend on STK anymore and can be used also with MTE  MGNLEESOLR-66 - Getting issue details... STATUS

• magnolia-solr-search-provider-theme module has gone  MGNLEESOLR-66 - Getting issue details... STATUS

• Improve search performance  MGNLEESOLR-64 - Getting issue details... STATUS
• Connect Crawlers with activation process  MGNLEESOLR-77 - Getting issue details... STATUS
• Ability to use different implementation of edu.uci.ics.crawler4j.crawler.WebCrawler and different triggering command for every Crawler  MGNLEESOLR-61 - Getting issue details... STATUS
• Search results are now configured at the page level instead of the component level  MGNLEESOLR-70 - Getting issue details... STATUS
• Don't ignore the Robots Meta Tag  MGNLEESOLR-72 - Getting issue details... STATUS
  
  

Full changelog for version 3.0 https://jira.magnolia-cms.com/browse/MGNLEESOLR/fixforversion/17434

Regarding the changes in the module it's recommended completely recreate the Solr indexes after to upgrade to version 3.0.

Indexing Magnolia workspaces

The Content Indexer module is a recursive repository indexer and an event based indexer. You can configure multiple indexers for different sites and document types. The content indexer also allows you to crawl external websites using JSoup and CSS selectors. You then define different field mappings that will be obtained for each node and indexed in the solr index.

Indexer configuration

Configure an indexer in Configuration > /modules/content-indexer/config/indexers. Example configurations for indexing a website and DAM assets are provided. Duplicate one of the examples to index another site or workspace.

Properties:

IndexService

The indexer uses an IndexService to handle the indexing of a node. A basic implementation is configured by default: info.magnolia.search.solrsearchprovider.logic.indexer.BasicSolrIndexService. You can define and configure your own IndexService for specific needs.

Implement the IndexService interface:

public class I18nIndexerService implements info.magnolia.module.indexer.indexservices.IndexService {

   private static final Logger log = LoggerFactory.getLogger(I18nIndexerService.class);

   @Override
   public boolean index(Node node, IndexerConfig config) {
      ...

Register the IndexService in the Content Indexer module configuration:

Crawling a website

The crawler mechanism uses the Scheduler to crawl a site periodically.

From version 3.0 Crawlers can be also connected with activation process by adding  info.magnolia.module.indexer.crawler.commands.CrawlerIndexerActivationCommand into command chain with activation command. By default this is done for this activation/deactivation commands:

• catalog: default, command: activation - configured under /modules/activation/commands/default/activate/activate
• catalog: default, command: deactivate - configured under /modules/activation/commands/default/deactivate
• catalog: default, command: personalizationActivation - configured under /modules/personalization-integration/commands/default/personalizationActivation
  

If you are using custom activation command and you wish to connect it with crawler mechanism, you can use info.magnolia.module.indexer.setup.AddCrawlerIntoCommandChainTask install/update task for it.

Example: Configuration to crawl bbc.com

Properties:

Providing a Solr search

The Solr Search Provider module contains templates to display search results on the site. It also provides faceted search components for refining the results further. The faceted search gets related facets from the search context. Suggestions and available fields are available in Freemarker context.

Configuring the Solr server base URL

Configure the Solr server address in Configuration > /modules/solr-search-provider/config/solrConfig@baseURL. baseURL should be http://<domain_name>:<port>/solr/<solr_core_name>. So if solr server was installed as described in the installation section then baseURL is http://localhost:8983/solr/magnolia.

See HttpSolrClient Javadoc for other properties.

Creating a search results page

Create a search results page using one of the available templates. Which template you use depends on the type of project you have and the modules that are installed.

To try it in the demo travel site:

1. Make the template available in the site definition.
2. Create a page which uses the template.
3. Edit the home page properties.
4. Select your Solr results page in the Search Page field.

Search result settings

Url domain filtering

You can filter results by URL domain in the Filter url prefix field

.

Field boosting for relevance

The example query title^100 abstract^0.1 will boost the rank for matches in the title field 1000 times more than equivalent matches in the abstract.

The query will give the following results:

If instead you boost the abstract over the title you would get the following results for the same search. The returned snippets are now primarily from page titles.

Filtering search results

Positive filtering: Return only results where the keyword conference is present.

Negative filtering: Don't return results where the keyword conference is present.

You can add more filters by separating them by spaces.

Autocomplete search bar

The autocomplete search bar provides suggestions while you type into the search field. jQuery UI Autocomplete widget and info.magnolia.search.solrsearchprovider.logic.servlets.SearchServlet are used for this functionality.

How to configure it

1. Go http://jqueryui.com/download and download jQuery UI javascript for Autocomplete widget and required dependencies
2. In downloaded archive find jquery-ui.js (or jquery-ui.min.js) and jquery.js and add them into Magnolia resources
3. Add jQuery javascript libraries into to the Search result page
   

   <script src="path to jquery.js" type="text/javascript"></script>
<script src="path to jquery-ui.js" type="text/javascript"></script>

4. Add this small javascript into the Search result page

   var jq = jQuery.noConflict();
   jq(document).ready(function () {
       jq("#searchbar, #nav-search, #search").autocomplete({
           open: function () {
               jq(this).autocomplete('widget').css('z-index', 999);
           },
           source: function (request, response) {
               jq.get("${contextPath}/searchservlet/", {search: request.term.toLowerCase(), queryType: "SUGGEST", fields: "collation", fq: "*"},
                   function (data) {
                       response(data);
                   }, "json"
               );
           },
           minLength: 2
       });
   });

More information about the autocomplete feature

For more information see series of the blog posts:

• AUTO-COMPLETE, SUGGESTIONS FOR MAGNOLIA CMS WITH JQUERY/SOLR PART 1/5 ( ADDING MAGNOLIA CONTENT TO SOLR )
• AUTO-COMPLETE, SUGGESTIONS FOR MAGNOLIA CMS WITH JQUERY/SOLR PART 2/5 ( SOLR SUGGESTION HANDLER )
• AUTO-COMPLETE, SUGGESTIONS FOR MAGNOLIA CMS WITH JQUERY/SOLR PART 3/5 (ADDING THE SOLR SERVLET LOGIC TO MAGNOLIA )
• AUTO-COMPLETE, SUGGESTIONS FOR MAGNOLIA CMS WITH JQUERY/SOLR PART 4/5 (ADDING THE CSS TO SHOW THE AUTOCOMPLETE)
• AUTO-COMPLETE, SUGGESTIONS FOR MAGNOLIA CMS WITH JQUERY/SOLR PART 5/5 (ADDING THE JQUERY SCRIPT TO SHOW THE AUTOCOMPLETE)

Other features

• Pagination
• Faceting on all fields
• Ranged faceting
• Similar search

• Localized search

• Suggestions