The Future of Search - Finder 2.0 Preview
The future of search technology for Joomla 1.5 is here. The JXtended team is proud to announce the availability of Finder 2.0 Alpha, a preview release of the new Finder 2.0 Advanced Search system for Joomla 1.5.
Finder is a powerful search engine that gives you access to technology used by major search engines like Google™ and Yahoo!™. Finder 2.0 features a completely redesigned core engine for better search results, AJAX powered search suggestions based on the actual content of your site, an expanding selection of search plugins, and much more.
Building Better Results
The major focus of version 2.0 was rebuilding the core search engine to be more aware of language issues and nuances.
Natural languages, meaning, ordinary spoken languages, are notoriously difficult to analyze because of their irregularity and complexity. For example, when a user searches for joomla extensions, we should consider results that contain joomla extension (in singular form) but might not have a single occurrence of joomla extensions (in plural form). That is a relatively simple task but it becomes much more difficult when dealing with all the possible endings and variations of a word like “search” which could come in the form of searching, searched, searches, searchable, etc.
To deliver the best search results, we have to analyze every word in both its inflected and root form. Finder 2.0 takes advantage of language stemming technology to solve this problem and 2.0 Alpha ships with a basic English language stemmer as well as a wrapper for the Snowball stemmer package. The Snowball stemming package supports Danish, German, English, Spanish, Finnish, French, Hungarian, Italian, Norwegian, Dutch, Portuguese, Romanian, Russian, and Turkish; it is available in the PHP Extension Community Library.
Rochen customers will be happy to know that they can use the Snowball package out of the box with all shared hosting accounts. Customers with managed servers can have Snowball installed by opening a support ticket and asking them to install the PECL Stem package. Rochen has offered to do this free of charge.
But, looking at words one at a time will never help us see the big picture. To really understand what users are looking for, words have to be considered in combinations and phrases. After all, a bartender school is not the same as a school bartender. Finder 2.0 does this by splitting long sequences of words into two and three word phrases. Each word in the phrase is examined in detail on an individual level and in relationship to its surrounding words. This allows us to deliver more accurate search results by leveraging the implied context and relative scarcity of matching phrases to dramatically influence search result rankings.
Helping Users Get Results
Two new features were added to Finder 2.0 to help users get the most relevant search results: search suggestions and search query explanations.
Finder 2.0 uses unobtrusive AJAX to offer search query suggestions to users based on the actual content of your site. It is common for search engines to log user queries and offer them back as suggestions to other users but this is pointless if the suggestions won’t produce actual results. Finder's suggestions come directly from your site’s content so Finder will never make suggestions that can’t produce results.
Further, to help users understand how their search query is being interpreted, Finder 2.0 offers detailed explanations of queries to make sure users are getting what they asked for. Suppose a user is looking for Joomla extensions but they are not interested in any plugins so they enter joomla extension not plugin into the search form, Finder would explain the search query in simple language like, “assuming joomla is required, and extension is required, and plugin should be excluded, the following results were found.” The explanation makes it clear exactly which words are being considered and which are being ignored.
This becomes really helpful when a user enters something like joomla extension not plugin or module. Does the user mean plugin and module should both be excluded or exclude plugin and include module as an option? Finder will interpret it as, “assuming joomla is required, and extension is required, and module is optional, and plugin should be excluded, the following results were found.” Based on the explanation, it will be clear how the system is interpreting the query and then the user can adjust it, if necessary.
More Plugins, More Results
Of course, a cool new search engine core and a fancy new query parser aren’t all that helpful if your content isn’t being found. Finder 2.0 Stable will include several new search plugins.
With the rise in popularity of CCK tools and other, more niche ways of storing content comes a need for better solutions for searching that content. Finder 2.0 will have adapters for Zoo by YOOtheme™; K2 by JoomlaWorks; expanded support for special document formats including DOC, DOCX, HTML, PDF, TXT, and XML; improved support for VirtueMart; and much more.
We’ve developed a new API for Finder Plugins that gives them unprecedented power and control over how content is indexed, ranked, stored, and synchronized. The new plugin API allows for whole objects of data to be stored with search results. The new object store will allow developers and designers to create custom layouts for search results, by type, if they wish. That means search results for VirtueMart products can look completely different from your Joomla articles or your Zoo blog entries. You say you’d like to add a button to your search results that allows your users to add them to their shopping cart, it’s just a simple layout away with Finder 2.0.
About the Alpha Release
Finder 2.0 Alpha was released to give users and developers a sneak-peek into the work we’ve been doing over the last few months and to begin testing the new engine. It is not ready for use on live or production websites.
We know that you’re excited to get started but it is extremely important that you read the release information, installation notes, and requirements before you try to install Finder 2.0 Alpha. You’ll thank us later.
Package Contents
The Finder 2.0 Alpha package includes the core search system, a search module, as well as an administrator “status” module. The Alpha release only includes search plugins for Joomla Articles, Contacts, Web links; and Zoo Items.
Installation Notes
Unlike most JXtended extensions, Finder 2.0 cannot be installed over an older version. You must uninstall any old versions of Finder on your site before installing the new package. Read more about how to install Finder.
Requirements
Finder 2.0 Alpha is the first JXtended extension to use the new JXtended Libraries 2.0. The Libraries will come bundled with the Finder package so there is no need to download any extra packages.
Finder also requires:
- PHP 5.2 or higher.
- MySQL 4.1 or higher.
Congratulations! It sounds pretty cool.
The Snowball stemming support is super. The AJAX search query suggestions is great. That said, I'd like to suggest one more AJAX-related feature specifically for the module:
the Mac Spotlight-like way to show results as you type (search results update instantly).
You could add this great feature to your in-house module or support modules like:
- YOOsearch
- RokAjaxSearch
Given you already implemented the "AJAX search query suggestions" feature then IMHO the "AJAX search result suggestions" module will set Finder 2.0 the best and complete solution.
Keep up the great work... thank you!
How about Flexicontent support, which is after all the best CCK out there
How about Flexicontent support, which is after all the best CCK out there
are you going to support joomfish as well?
it would be great...
would that include Joomla! 1.6?
Fantastic!
I'll try it out in the coming days...
Great as always! We are excited to see a release candidate. We hope that this Finder will also open the doors towards multi-site searching and glossary support!
First of all, I apologize for the problems with the comments. We are trying out some new stuff on the site and a few bugs were missed.
@Andrea,
I'd like to add that to Finder 2.1, if not sooner.
@Torkil,
I'll take a look at creating a plugin for Flexicontent. I'm not familiar with that system so I'll have to get back to you.
@Teddy,
It is on our list of things to research but no firm plans yet.
@Manoel,
Finder will work with Joomla 1.6 when 1.6 gets to be more stable. Trying to keep up with it right now is very difficult. We'll begin to work on 1.6 compatibility once Joomla 1.6 Beta is released.
Question: I just purchased the original finder, will I be able to upgrade to this one for free when it comes out into commercial use?
Sorry that was a dumb question, I do have an error report. Not sure where to put it. The component gives an error when it tries to index my articles, the error is due to the multithumb plugin that I run in my content. here is the error:
[code]Fatal error: Call to undefined method JDocumentRAW::addCustomTag() in /plugins/content/multithumb.php on line 525[/code]
We've tried it and gave an XML error after 1% during indexing.
So we're waiting for a beta version....anyways GREAT improvement for an already superb component.
@Boris,
/jxtended.com/support/finder-help.html you can open a support ticket and we will help you resolve that issue.
/jxtended.com/support/finder-help.html
That's a good question, the answer is yes, you will be able to upgrade to Finder 2.x for free if you are a customer using Finder 1.x. If you go to http
@Ehrmann-ne,
Thanks for the kind words. If you wouldn't mind opening a support ticket for that, we'd appreciate your help debugging problems so we can get it ready for production use as soon as possible: http
Will finder 1.1 covered by Virtuemart? Thanks.
Is it possible to support MightyExtensions RESOURCES !?!
Please. TIA!!!
@Abraham,
Finder 1.1 does provide some basic support for VirtueMart, Finder 2.0 will provide better support for VirtueMart.
@rk,
I am not familiar with that extension, we will look into it.
Any expected release date ?
Why the need for add-ons for particular extensions or specific CCK why not also provide user with Table and Field options.
The way Im reading this there could be 800 versions of the extension.
If its a technical problem thats one thing.
If its a commercial decision thats another (even heinz only had 57 varieties)
Or maybe its an strategic alliance question "Finder the Kingmaker"
Sounds awesome though. - just wanted to give the perspective for the non-favored extension users and developers.
Oh yeah...
is there allready an expected release date ?
we are about to launch a new site that has got more than 100.000 articles... and we would like ton include this new finder before the launch...
please please
Is the ajax result drop down disabled in the alpha? Or have I not enabled something?
its about 63 days thay jxtended promised to release finder 2 asap and yet we have to wait.on their twitter they promised to release it within few days but unfortunately its not available.the only thing i want is the k2 plugin and its the only reason i purchased finder.i hope u can at least release a beta
Hey does this support indexing and searching the content of the documents like PDF, word, xls, ppt ,etc?
You are a very smart person!