This document discusses the advantages and disadvantages of using Solr for search in Drupal, highlighting its performance, open-source nature, and configurability. It covers installation steps, necessary configuration, and various hooks for customization. Additionally, it briefly mentions the Search API as an alternative, noting its abstraction and integration capabilities with various backends.

1. Switching
Search
to
SOLR
Brad Blake
Drupalcamp Atlanta 2011 ( 10/1/2011 )

2. The
Good
➡ Ships with Drupal
➡ AND/OR, exact phrase matching
➡ Many extension modules, including
facets, word stemming
➡ Indexes default display, but can
configure search_index display

3. The
Bad
➡ Memory/CPU intensive for searching
and indexing
➡ Doesn’t scale well
➡ Dead End ( advanced search, but not
intuitive )
➡ Exact keyword matching

4. What
is
SOLR?
➡ Open-Source Search Platform
➡ Apache Lucene search library
➡ Standalone Search Server
➡ Runs within servlet container ( Tomcat )
➡ XML/JSON API’s

5. Why
Use
SOLR?
➡ Performance
➡ Optimized for search
➡ Distributed Search / Index Replication
➡ Reduces load on Drupal site
➡ Faster = Better

6. Facets
➡ Way to filter search results by
categorized information
➡ Open-Ended search
➡ More clicks, more relevant
➡ Blocks: Context

7. Why
Use
SOLR?
➡ Document Handling ( PDF / Word, etc)
➡ Better Search Algorithms
➡ Full-text search
➡ Word Stemming, Splitting, etc
➡ Highly Configurable

8. Drawbacks
➡ Hosted website = more $$$
➡ Requires hosting provider to install
➡ Maintenance / overhead
➡ Java / Tomcat experience

9. How
to
Install?
➡ Same Server / Own Server
➡ http://wiki.apache.org/solr/SolrTomcat
➡ Hosting Providers
➡ Acquia
➡ Others

10. ApacheSolr
➡ http://drupal.org/project/apachesolr
➡ Copy schema.xml / solrconfig.xml into
solr conf directory
➡ Enable apachesolr, apachesolr_search
➡ Change default and available searches
under Configuration -> Search Settings

11. ApacheSolr
➡ Add URL to your SOLR instance

12. Configure
➡ Settings: Basic behavior
➡ Search Index: Status of documents in
index.
➡ Enabled Filters: Enable and Configure
Facets

13. Configure
➡ Search Pages: Create custom search
pages, i.e. taxonomy
➡ Content Bias: Property and Content
Type weighting, Content Type exclusion
➡ Search Fields: Field weighting

14. Hooks
➡ hook_apachesolr_update_index
➡ Change the contents of a document
before it is indexed

15. Dynamic
Fields

16. Hooks
➡ hook_apachesolr_query_alter
➡ Alter a query object before it gets sent

17. Hooks
➡ Doesn’t allow a node to be indexed.
➡ Does NOT remove a node already there.

18. Hooks
➡ hook_apachesolr_search_result_alter($d
oc) { }
➡ hook_apachesolr_sort_links_alter(&
$sort_links) {}

19. Hooks
➡ Add a new sort field for Author
➡ Author is a node reference or string, not
default Drupal authored by

20. Hooks

21. Theme
➡ search-results.tpl.php

22. Theme
➡ Default search-result.tpl.php
➡ $result contains a lot of information
➡ Contains data valid at the time of
indexing
➡ Not all fields are present

23. Theme
➡ Can add fields to result object through
query_alter
➡ Find names at /admin/reports/
apachesolr

24. Theme

25. Attachments
➡ Install Apache Tika locally or in SOLR
➡ http://drupal.org/project/
apachesolr_attachments
➡ Indexes attachments and extracts text if
possible.
➡ Read the README

26. Attachments
➡ Creates File attachment ‘node’ in the
index.
➡ Can theme these to link back to parent
node.
➡ hook_apachesolr_attachment_index_alte
r($document, $node, $file) {}

27. Search
API
➡ http://drupal.org/project/search_api
➡ Search framework to search on any
entity, with any backend

28. The
Good
➡ Abstraction of search engine layer ( DB /
Mongo / SOLR, etc )
➡ Views integration
➡ Faceted search
➡ Ability for multiple backends
➡ Set up additional search pages

29. The
Good
➡ Many extension modules ( AJAX,
Autocomplete, Attachments, etc )
➡ Control over which fields are indexed
( Index level, not Content Type level )

30. The
Bad
➡ Not compatible with all versions of
SOLR
➡ Sorts module not as good as apachesolr
module’s
➡ Performance depends on backend used
➡ Field weights not as granular
➡ Takes getting used to

31. Thank
You
➡ Questions?