Periscope module

The Periscope module provides back-end functionality used by the Find Bar. It can be used out-of-the-box to search all content apps or extended by activating search in external data sources and by implementing operations commonly used by your users. The Find Bar brings the back-end search functionality of the Periscope module into the Magnolia UI. It provides the UI display of the Find Bar search box, search results grid and the drop-down filters to refine results.

Module structure

Installing

Maven is the easiest way to install the modules. Add the following dependencies to your webapp. All the other necessary dependencies will be brought in automatically:

<dependency>
  <groupId>info.magnolia.periscope</groupId>
  <artifactId>magnolia-periscope-core</artifactId>
  <version>1.2.7</version>
</dependency>

<dependency>
  <groupId>info.magnolia.periscope</groupId>
  <artifactId>magnolia-speech-recognition</artifactId>
  <version>1.2.7</version>
</dependency>

• magnolia-periscope-api.jar
• magnolia-periscope-core.jar
• magnolia-speech-recognition.jar

Configuration

There's no additional configuration required for standard use because the default configuration provides a number of search result suppliers and periscope operations. All content apps are detected upon startup and corresponding search result suppliers for their workspaces are generated by the system on-the-fly. 

You may configure additional search result suppliers and periscope operations to suit your specific needs. A sample REST integration is also provided, which you can use as a basis to implement your own REST integration.

For general usage information, see the Find Bar page. 

Search result suppliers

Search result suppliers are responsible for providing results to the Find Bar.

By default, all the Magnolia JCR workspaces are searchable. Content apps are detected when you start Magnolia and the system generates corresponding SearchResultSupplier s  for their workspaces automatically. For performance reasons, search results are limited to 10 items per search result supplier and 100 items in total by default.

For example, this is the definition for the Pages app:

class: info.magnolia.periscope.search.jcr.JcrSearchResultSupplierDefinition
workspace: website
nodeTypes:
  - mgnl:page
fullTextSearch: true
titleProperty: title
icon: webpages-app

If you want to search non-JCR databases or external datasets, you must create your own corresponding SearchResultSupplier.

Creating a custom search result supplier

Use the SearchResultSupplierDefinition interface provided by the magnolia-periscope-api submodule to implement a search result supplier. For example, you could implement a search result supplier to search through images stored on S3 or Flickr. 

public interface SearchResultSupplier {
    String getName();
    Stream<SearchResult> search(SearchQuery query) throws SearchException;
}

public class SearchResult {

    private final String text;
    private final String excerpt;
    private final Object operationRequest;

    private final String type;
    private final String lastModifiedBy;
    private final ZonedDateTime lastModified;
}

For example, the built-in JcrSearchResultSupplierDefinition creates an InternalNavigationRequest to open the result selected by the user in Magnolia. 

For JCR workspaces

Content apps are detected when you start Magnolia and the system generates corresponding SearchResultSuppliers for their JCR workspaces automatically. You only need to define a search result supplier using YAML to search JCR workspaces if you want to customize the supplier. Magnolia provides a registry with a specific JcrSearchResultSupplierDefinition class that searches over defined JCR workspaces using specific node types and with the option of performing full-text search.

In the example below, the JcrSearchResultSupplierDefinition class, <my-custom-workspace> workspace and node type <my-node-type> are specified. Full-text search is activated within the workspace defined.

workspace: <my-custom-workspace>
nodeTypes:
- <my-node-type>
fullTextSearch: true
titleProperty: caption
class: info.magnolia.periscope.search.jcr.JcrSearchResultSupplierDefinition

Properties

For REST integrations

You can define a search result supplier using YAML to integrate an external dataset via REST. Magnolia provides a specific RestSearchResultSupplierDefinition class to facilitate REST integrations. The sample described below shows how it can be used. 

Sample REST integration 

The magnolia-periscope-core module provides a sample REST integration illustrating how to deliver search results from outside of Magnolia. When enabled, this sample integrates the Magnolia documentation and the Find Bar displays search results from the documentation.

You can define your own REST integrations using the info.magnolia.periscope.search.rest.RestSearchResultSupplierDefinition class.

This example shows the definition for searching the Magnolia documentation:

class: info.magnolia.periscope.search.rest.RestSearchResultSupplierDefinition
baseUrl: https://documentation.magnolia-cms.com/rest/api/content/search
requestParameters: "?cql=(type=page AND space=DOCS60 AND (title~\"/.*${query}.*/\" OR text~\"/.*${query}.*/\") ${editorClause} ${dateClause})&limit=10&expand=history"
editorField: contributor
dateField: lastmodified
navigationBaseURL: "https://documentation.magnolia-cms.com"
titleJsonPath: $..results[?(@.title =~ /^(?!_).*/i)].title
navigationURLJsonPath: $..results[?(@.title =~ /^(?!_).*/i)]..webui
editorJsonPath: $..results[?(@.title =~ /^(?!_).*/i)]..displayName
dateJsonPath: $..results[?(@.title =~ /^(?!_).*/i)]..createdDate
enabled: false

baseUrl: https://en.wikipedia.org/w/api.php
requestParameters: ?format=json&action=query&titles=%s&redirects
navigationBaseURL: "https://en.wikipedia.org/?curid=%s"
titleJsonPath: $..title
navigationURLJsonPath: $..pageid
class: info.magnolia.periscope.search.rest.RestSearchResultSupplierDefinition

Properties

Disabling search result suppliers 

To change which suppliers are enabled, you must provide your own Find Bar configuration through component mapping.

For example, add a custom configuration provider to your module descriptor :

<component>
 <type>info.magnolia.admincentral.findbar.FindBarConfigurationProvider</type>
 <implementation>com.example.findbar.CustomFindBarConfigurationProvider</implementation>
</component>

Changing the order of search result supplier results 

Results are presented asynchronously by search result supplier, from all workspaces and in the following default order:

• Apps
• Pages
• Stories
• Assets
• Tours
• Any other search result suppliers in alphabetical order.

This order is configurable. To change it, you must provide your own Find Bar configuration through component mapping (see example above)

Configuring the default number of search results per supplier

For performance reasons, search results are limited to 10 items per search result supplier by default. 

This limit is configurable. To change it, you must provide your own Find Bar configuration through component mapping (see example above)

Periscope operations

Periscope operations are actions that are executed based on a corresponding operation request, usually triggered by a search result when a user clicks it in the Find Bar. 

By default, Magnolia provides the following Operations out-of-the-box:

• Internal navigation – shows an item inside a workspace by opening the corresponding app.
• External navigation – opens a URL in a new browser tab.
• App navigation – opens an app.

For example, this is the Operation definition provided for opening an app, for example, when a user clicks the "pages app" result or types "open pages app":

requestClass: info.magnolia.periscope.operation.request.AppNavigationRequest
operationClass: info.magnolia.admincentral.findbar.operation.AppNavigationOperation

Configuring a Operation

Developers can define additional custom operations to be used by result suppliers.

This is the generic interface that should be implemented in order to introduce a new Operation:

public interface Operation<R> {
    OperationResult execute(R request);
}

In order for Periscope to register the operation, create a definition complying with OperationDefinition, for example by creating a YAML file under src/main/resources/<module-name>/operations as follows: 

requestClass: com.example.mypackage.MyCustomRequest
operationClass: com.example.mypackage.MyCustomOperation

In this example, a MyCustomOperation is executed whenever a SearchResult's getOperationRequest() returns an instance of MyCustomRequest (after the result has been clicked).

Query sniffers

Query sniffers are listeners for changes in the Find Bar. When a user enters a search query into the Find Bar (by typing or speaking), Periscope notifies all registered sniffers. The sniffers then decide whether to take action or not based on the same query.

All built-in query sniffers have the form of commands: they execute an action based on certain text patterns. The default ones are:

• Find – searches and opens the first result:
  • node (node name or title), triggered by queries like "find mountain tour".
  • content (full-text), triggered by queries like "find pages about biking".
• Open – command to open apps, triggered by, for example, "open assets app".

Defining query sniffers

Custom query sniffers can be introduced by implementing the QuerySniffer interface:

public interface QuerySniffer {
    Optional<OperationResult> sniff(String query);
}

For sniffers intended to take action based on a regex pattern, extend PatternCommandSniffer, which abstracts away the matching part. For example, a command for creating contacts can be implemented as follows:

public abstract class CreateContactCommandSniffer extends PatternCommandSniffer {

    private static final Pattern COMMAND_PATTERN = Pattern.compile("create contact (?<contactName>([^\\s]+))");

    @Override
    protected abstract Pattern getPattern() {
        COMMAND_PATTERN;
    }

    @Override
    protected abstract OperationResult execute(Matcher matcher) {
        String contactName = matcher.group("contactName");
        // ... (create contact)
        return new OperationResult(true, "Successfully created new contact named: " + contactName);
    }
}

To be recognized by Periscope, each sniffer must be registered through a definition. New query sniffer definitions are automatically detected by the running system. To register a sniffer, create a YAML definition file under src/main/resources/<module-name>/querySniffers as follows:

snifferClass: com.example.periscope.sniff.CreateContactCommandSniffer

Speech recognition service

The speech-recognition module provides the speech recognition service to enable voice data processing for users searching using the Find Bar. Typically users speak to Magnolia via a microphone and the speech recognition service translates their voice data into text. The periscope executes that text like a normal text query from the user.

The default Speech recognition implementation uses Web Speech API.