Joomla! Documentation™

Description

This screen shows a list of all the content items that have been indexed in Smart Search. If the list is empty then

• Make sure that the Smart Search plug-in has been enabled.
  • To check if the Smart Search plug-in has been enabled:
    • Select System from the Administrator menu and then Plugins from the Manage panel.
    • Select "content" from the Filter Options -Select Type- list.
    • Find "Smart Search" in the list of plug-ins shown.
    • If there is a green tick in the Status column for Smart Search then the Smart Search plug-in has been enabled. If there is red cross then the Smart Search plug-in is currently disabled.
  • To enable the Smart Search plug-in:
    • Click on the red cross. This should change to a green tick indicating that the Smart Search plug-in is now enabled.

How to access

• Select Components → Smart Search → Index from the Administrator menu.

Screenshot

Create an Index

Click on the Index toolbar icon. This will open a window to show the progress of the indexing operation. The indexing operation may take some time depending on the number of content items on your site and the number of search words and phrases contained in each content item. A progress bar will indicate how much of the indexing process has been completed so far. Do not close this window until indexing has been completed. On sites with a large amount of content this may take a long time (tens of minutes).

Column Headers

In the table containing the indexed content for your Joomla! site you will see different columns. Here you can read what they mean and what is displayed in each column.

• Checkbox. Check this box to select one or more items. To select all items, check the box in the column heading. After one or more boxes are checked, click a toolbar button to take an action on the selected item or items. Many toolbar actions, such as Publish and Unpublish, can work with multiple items. Others, such as Edit, only work on one item at a time. If multiple items are checked and you press Edit, the first item will be opened for editing.

• Status. The status of the content item within Smart Search. Published items are shown with a green tick; unpublished items by a red circle. You can change the status of an item by clicking on the icon. Changing the status on this screen only affects whether the content item is available in search results and does not affect the content item itself.
• Title. The title of the content item.
• Type. The type of the content item.
• Last Updated. The date on which the content item was last re-indexed. Any change to the indexable fields of a content item will automatically cause that content item to be re-indexed.
• Details. The details of the content item (Published Start, Published End, Content Start, Content End).
• Raw URL. The raw (non-SEF) URL that will be used to retrieve the content item in search results.

List Filters

Search bar. Near the top of the page you will see the search bar shown in the Screenshot above.

• Search by Text. Enter part of the search term and click the Search icon. Hover to see a Tooltip indicating which fields will be searched.
  To 'Search by ID' enter "id:x", where "x" is the ID number (for example, "id:19").
• Filter Options. Click to display the additional filters.
• Clear. Click to clear the Filter field and restore the list to its unfiltered state.
• Ordering. Shows the current list ordering field. 2 ways to change the order:
  • Select from the dropdown list. Ordering may be in ascending or descending order.
  • Click a column heading. The column heading toggles between ascending and descending order.
• Number to Display. Shows the number of items in a list. Select from the dropdown list to change the number displayed.
  The default for a site is '20' but this may be changed in the Global Configuration.

Filter Options

• Filter by published status. Choose whether to show only published or unpublished content items by selecting the appropriate item from the drop-down list. The published state of the items in Smart Search is independent of their published state elsewhere.
• Filter by type of content. Select the content item type from the drop-down list.

• Search Content Maps. Optional, used to search in content map title.

Toolbar

At the top of the page you will see the toolbar shown in the Screenshot above. The functions are:

• Index. Runs the Smart Search indexer. A small popup window will appear with a progress bar which advances as the indexing process works through the content on your site. Do not close this popup window until the process is finished. On sites with a large amount of content this may take a long time (tens of minutes). You should run the indexer after new content has been introduced to your website that the Smart Search function is not automatically aware of. For example, batch importing new content where the importer does not automatically trigger Smart Search to index each new content item. NOTE: The Smart Search indexer can also be run from the command-line interface (CLI) if required. See Setting up automatic Smart Search indexing.
• Publish. Makes the selected items available to visitors to your website.
• Unpublish. Makes the selected items unavailable to visitors to your website.

• Statistics: Shows some basic statistics on Smart Search.

• Delete: Deletes the selected content items. Works with one or multiple content items selected. Deleting a content item from Smart Search only deletes it from the index and does not affect the content item itself.
• Clear Index. Purges the Smart Search index by emptying all index tables. To continue using Smart Search you must click on the Index toolbar icon after purging. WARNING: Purging the index also empties the content filters. You must manually re-enter the content filter settings after a Purge-Index cycle.
• Help. Opens this help screen.

• Options. Opens the Options window where settings such as default parameters can be edited. See Smart Search: Options for further details.

Quick Tips

• Smart Search was introduced in Joomla 3.0 but is not enabled by default in that version.
• If you are new to Smart Search then you should read the Smart Search quickstart guide.
• If you run the indexer and get an "undefined null" error, then check the permissions on the Joomla /logs directory. The web server needs to have write permission to that directory for the indexer to work.

Related information

• Setting up automatic Smart Search indexing