Joomla! Documentation™

Description

This screen shows the content maps currently in the Smart Search index. Content maps allow you to cross-reference your indexed content (articles, etc) to related meta information such as the category in which it resides. Each content item that is indexed by Smart Search is added to one or more content maps that can be used as filters when searching the index.

Content maps are split into two parts:

• Map Group: These are super-containers for a particular type of information. For example, a Map Group could be "Type", "Category", "Event", "Language" or "Author".
• Content Map: Content maps are the actual values for the meta information in a particular Map Group. The Content Maps are, for example, the names of the categories or authors.

These Map Groups and Content Maps are what make up the advanced search panel available on the front-end. For each Map Group there can be a drop-down select list and the Content Maps are added as values to the respective list. More advanced site builders can override the default layouts and use multi-select lists or checkboxes instead.

It's important to note that Map Groups and Content Maps from different content types are merged into the one list. A Joomla article in a category called "News" and a news feed or contact in a category named the same are mapped to the same Content Map in the same Map Group. This is a little like tagging different types of content with the same label. The effect is that your site visitor does not have to know how your content is classified in order to set the correct filters to find it.

The content maps screen shows all the Map Groups within the Smart Search index together with a number indicating the number of Content Maps within that Map Group and the items within a Contrent Map. Clicking on a Map Groups number allows you to see the Content Map within that Map Group together with the number of content items that belong to that Content Map. A content item can belong to multiple Content Maps within a Map Group as well as to multiple Map Groups.

How to access

• Select Components → Smart Search → Content Maps from the Administrator menu.

Screenshot

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 Map Group or Content Map.
• Maps. The number of maps inside the Map Group. Selecting the number wil show the maps inside the Map Group.
• Published Indexed Content. The number of published content items in the Map Group. Selecting the number will show the published content items inside the Map Group.
• Unpublished Indexed Content. The number of unpublished content items in the Map Group. Selecting the number will show the unpublished content items inside the Map Group.

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 maps by selecting the appropriate item from the drop-down list. The published state of the maps in Smart Search is independent of their published state elsewhere.
• Filter by Map Group. Select the Map Group from the drop-down list.
  • Authors
  • Categories
  • Languages
  • Types
• Filter by Max Levels (Category Level). Lets you show only items whose category is at or above the specified level in the category hierarchy.
  • - Select Max Levels -: Show all items regardless of level of their assigned category.
  • 1: Only show items whose category is at the top level in the category hierarchy (in other words, with categories whose parent category is "- No Parent -".)
  • 2-10: Only show items whose category is in the top 2-10 levels in the category hierarchy.

Toolbar

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

• Actions: Reveals a list of actions for selected Items. Check one or more Item checkboxes to activate the list.

• Publish. Makes the selected Map Groups or Content Maps available to visitors to your website.

• Unpublish. Makes the selected Map Groups or Content Maps unavailable to visitors to your website. An unpublished Map Group will not be displayed as a select list in the front-end. An unpublished Content Map will not appear in the select list for the Map Group in which it occurs. Re-indexing does not change the published state of Map Groups or Content Maps.

• Statistics: Shows some basic statistics on Smart Search.

• Delete: Deletes the selected Map Groups or Content Maps. Works with one or multiple Map Groups or Content Maps selected. You can recover deleted Map Groups or Content Maps by running the Smart Search indexer again.

• Options. Opens the Options window where settings such as default parameters can be edited.

• Help. Opens this help screen. 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.