Joomla! Documentation™

The purpose of the Finder Integration Working Group is to migrate JXtended's Finder extension package to be compatible with Joomla! 1.7+ in order to allow it to be considered for inclusion in a future release of the Joomla! CMS. At present, a realistic goal for this inclusion would be for Joomla! 3.0, scheduled for release in July 2012.

What is Finder?

Finder is an advanced search extension for Joomla! 1.5. The full package includes the Finder component, a front-end search module, a back-end status module, a group of plugins for processing data from core components, and a system plugin. Finder includes features such as term highlighting, suggestions, and allows for taxonomy support. Finder is used to power the search on extensions.joomla.org.

Goals

The ultimate goal is to enable Finder to be integrated into the Joomla! CMS, replacing the existing search component. Below are additional goals that should be met during the migration process:

• Component follows proper MVC structure
• All old version code updated to current supported version (for example, MooTools based script)
• Meets code style standards as defined in the Joomla! Platform
• Uses no deprecated methods (i.e. JRequest)
• Where possible, queries formed using JDatabaseQuery to enable multi-database compatibility
• Migrate existing command line method to extend JCli

Status

Below is the status as of 24 August 2011:

• Administrator Component
  • All of the code has been converted to follow the native MVC structure
  • Prior to code formatting and JDatabaseQuery conversions beginning, all areas of the component were working properly; however, since then the indexer fails while inserting data to the tokens table
  • Code referring to 1.5 ACL methods needs to be converted (for example, the references to the aid field)
• Administrator Module
  • The status module appears to be working as intended
• Site Component
  • The site component has had a quick overview of the code completed, however, major refactoring and testing has not yet been conducted
• Site Module
  • Testing has not yet been conducted
• System Plugin
  • The plugin has had a basic review but has not been tested
• Finder plugins
  • Each of the plugins for core methods have had basic review and refactoring to allow the indexer to run correctly
  • All dependencies on section data have been broken
  • Still needs further review and refactoring
• JavaScript
  • All of the MooTools based code has been reviewed and most deprecated/removed methods from 1.2 have been replaced with the appropriate 1.3 methods
  • All script needs to be tested
  • Script needs to be reviewed and, where available, replaced with existing scripts from the system library

Further Information

Work on conversion is being conducted from a GitHub repository until the extension package is 100% converted and ready to be feature requested into the CMS. At that point, the repository will move to a branch of the SVN where the package will be integrated into the core CMS installation.

• GitHub repository
• Coordinators: Michael Babker, Omar Ramos
• Contact: Chris Davenport (mailto:chris.davenport@joomla.org).