Low Search and Dynamo
Hello,
I have a site using Dynamo to create a search form and handle pagination. The search form is a bunch of drop downs for filtering on custom fields, and a keywords box. The keywords search is not very flexible, so I was looking into Low Search.
It appears I can convert to Low Search and still do my custom field filtering, but I am not entirely sure about the pagination bit and what functionality I would have to recreate that Dynamo provides by Low Search does not.
Based on the thread at https://getsatisfaction.com/low/topic..., I am guessing I cannot combine Low Search with Dynamo, though I would very much like to somehow use Low Search to improve the keyword search part of my Dynamo based search.
Can you confirm for me I can’t combine Dynamo with Low Search? And is Low Search usable for keywords plus filtering on several custom fields with pagination?
Thank you!
Replies
CNG 24 Dec 2013 00:53
Also, I am apparently using AB Pagination, so I need to factor in whether that is usable with Low Search if I need to switch from Dynamo to Low Search.
Low 24 Dec 2013 10:25
I reckon you don't need Dynamo when using Low Search. Pagination should work just like the regular channel:entries tag -- the low_search:results tag extends it.
My advice would be to switch to Low Search entirely and change the search forms accordingly.
CNG 27 Dec 2013 23:59
Hi Low, thank you for the opinion. It appears you are right, as I have mostly converted the Dynamo method to Low Search. I have a few remaining issues, and have been trying to research as thoroughly as I can before bugging you... but this one I can’t seem to find. I think I was relying on a feature of Dynamo and am unsure if I can achieve the same thing using Low Search.
I want to display information about the custom fields and keywords that were used in the search. The old code looked like this:
{if search:FIELD_NAME}
FIELD NAME “{search:FIELD_NAME}”,
{/if}
{if keywords}
Search Terms “{keywords}”,
{/if}
I can’t seem to get these to output anything, even changing keywords to low_search_keywords. As I said, maybe these were coming from Dynamo, as I now see on Dynamo docs: “If you add a valid search_id to the form tag, it will inherit all of the search's dynamic parameters as tag variables.”
If it helps, I disabled encoded queries for a bit and observed this output from the low_search_query_string tag: ?search:FIELD_NAME=Sample+Option&limit=10
The actual results seem fine, where they are filtered by the options selected for the various fields I am searching on. I just can’t figure out how to access those parameters to display information.
BTW, I might be trying to do something unexpected, but my search form is atop the results, which are paginated and loaded through Ajax. So to get this to work, I had to set the form tag’s result_page parameter to refer to its own page, and then the results tag contains this: {if segment_4 != ''} query="{segment_4}" {/if} That way it behaves as a normal entries tag if there is no search, and loads results if there is a search. I found I needed the “query” parameter to NOT be present if I am not doing a search, i.e. on the initial page load before a user could do a search.
CNG 28 Dec 2013 00:24
OK, I think I found the answer: {low_search_search:resource_type}
It looks a little weird, but it seems to work. Is this how I should be doing it?
Low 28 Dec 2013 05:54
Yes, that syntax is consistent with the way parameters work in Low Search. This page in the docs should clarify that: http://gotolow.com/addons/low-search/...