Share Repository Search Improvements

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The official documentation is at: http://docs.alfresco.com

Alfresco Share3.4

Table of Contents

• 1 Overview


• 2 Repository Searching


• 3 User Interface Improvements


• 4 Configuration
  
  
  
  • 4.1 Sorting
  
  


• 5 Share People Finder
  
  
  
  • 5.1 Search by Name or User Name
  
  
  • 5.2 Search by Property
  
  

Overview

The Alfresco Share 3.4.b release includes a number of user interface improvements to Search and the addition of Repository wide searching.
frame|c|none|Share Search - new features
The following describes the improvements and example configurations.

Repository Searching

The entire repository can now be searched, results will now be shown from all folders that the user has the appropriate access to. The context sensitive search features of the interface have also been improved. Previous to this version, only the current site or All Sites would be available as the context of a search. Now users who search from within the Repository Browser page will immediately see results from Repository search, and Repository is always available as a toggle to expand the context for search results.
frame|c|none|Share Search - context toggle

User Interface Improvements

• Paged results. Results are now shown in pages with 50 items per page.
  
• Sorting. Results can be sorted by a configurable sort menu.
  
• Folder path to an object shown in the results. For items in a Share site, the folder path is relative to the site document library, for repository items this is the absolute path for the containing folder. Clicking the folder path link will navigate the user directly to the folder in the appropriate document library or repository browser.
  
• Meta data. Now coloured the same as the document library interface to help identify data and the title property for an item is now shown in brackets next to the name of the item.
  
• Inline Actions. View In Browser and Download actions now available for results inline.
  
• DataLists. Data lists and data list items will now be shown in the search results if matched by the query.
  

Configuration

This is the default search configuration from share-config.xml:

   <config evaluator='string-compare' condition='Search'>
      <search>
         <min-search-term-length>1</min-search-term-length>
         
         <max-search-results>250</max-search-results>
         

         <repository-search>context</repository-search>
      </search>
   </config>

Override this section in the share-config-custom.xml file for your installation as usual to change the defaults.

Share Repository search configuration options:

none :disable repository wide search option

context :search depending on current context, including repository, all sites, current site (default)

always :always search full repository no matter what the context, disables search context options for the user

Sorting

The sort options available to the user can be configured to contain any valid property, including those of custom types. The following configuration is provided by default:

   <config evaluator='string-compare' condition='Search'>
      <search>

      <sorting>
         <sort labelId='search.sort.relevance'></sort>
         <sort labelId='label.name'>cm:name</sort>
         <sort labelId='label.title'>cm:title</sort>
         <sort labelId='label.description'>cm:description</sort>
         <sort labelId='label.author'>cm:author</sort>
         <sort labelId='label.modifier'>cm:modifier</sort>
         <sort labelId='label.modified'>cm:modified|false</sort>
         <sort labelId='label.creator'>cm:creator</sort>
         <sort labelId='label.created'>cm:created|false</sort>
         <sort labelId='search.sort.size'>.size|true</sort>
         <sort labelId='search.sort.mimetype'>.mimetype</sort>
         <sort labelId='search.sort.type'>TYPE</sort>
      </sorting>
   </config>

To add or modify the available sort properties, override the above section in share-config-custom.xml.

The sort config element contains the name of the content model field to sort against and can be of the form:

• Short QName string e.g. 'cm:name'
  
• Pseudo cm:content field starting with a '.' e.g. '.size'
  
• Any other valid sortable fts-alfresco special field e.g. 'TYPE'
  

The field can be optionally followed by |true or |false to indicate sorting direction.

The config element supports the following optional attributes:

label :label text to display

labelId :I18N message id of label text to display

It should be noted that the default sort option is Relevance which is configured with an empty value.

On display of the search results screen, the sorting menu will be built from the supplied configuration and the order of the items in the menu will match the order of the items in the configuration.

Share People Finder

The search capabilities of the Share people finder have been improved in this version.

Search by Name or User Name

To search for users by first name, last name or user name just type a single term, for example:

Joe

The results for this query will list all users whose first name, last name or user name starts with Joe.

To search for users by first and last name, separate two terms with a space, for example:

Joe Bloggs

The results for this query will list all users whose first name starts with Joe and and surname starts with Bloggs.

You can also enter just the start of the name, for example:

Joe B

The results for this query will list all users whose first name starts with Joe and and surname starts with B.

Search by Property

To search for users by property add the property as a prefix, for example:

location:maidenhead

The results for this query will find users whose location contains maidenhead.

The search will AND multiple terms together, for example:

jobtitle:engineer organization:alfresco

The results for this query will find users whose job title contains engineer and organization contains alfresco.

To reduce search results by property, add a property search term after a name search, for example:

Smith jobtitle:engineer

The results for this query will find users whose first name, last name or user name starts with Smith and job title contains engineer.

A Smith jobtitle:engineer

The results for this query will list all users whose first name starts with A and and surname starts Smith and job title contains engineer.