$Id: README.txt,v 1.21 2007-11-12 21:12:03 davidlesieur Exp $ README file for the Faceted Search Drupal module. Description *********** The Faceted Search module provides a search API and a search interface for allowing users to navigate content in such a way that they can rapidly get acquainted with the scope and nature of the content, and never feel lost in the data. More than a search interface, this is an information discovery tool. The interface exposes metadata in such a way that users can build their queries as they go, refining or expanding the current query, with results automatically reflecting the current query. This interface also combines free-text search, fully leveraging Drupal's search engine. It avoids complex search forms (which break the navigation flow), and never offers facets that would lead to empty result sets. The most obvious metadata for faceted searches is provided by Drupal's taxonomy module. However, Faceted Search's API allows developers to expose other metadata, therefore providing more more facets to users for browsing content. The package *********** Faceted Search is in fact a bundle of modules. - Faceted Search: This module provides the search framework and API. - Faceted Search UI: This module provides the search user interface. - Author Facet: This module allows users to refine the current search based on content author. - Content Type Facet: This module allows users to refine the current search based on content type. - Date Authored Facet: This module allows users to refine the current search based on content creation date. - Taxonomy Facets: This modules allows users to search content through taxonomy. Any vocabulary can become a facet that can be used to refine the current search. Hopefully, many more facets will be developed. The API is meant to make it easy to implement new facets. Current status ************** This module is undergoing development. The provided features and API might still change without warning. Although this code uses some object-oriented programming, it is still compatible with PHP 4 at the moment. Caution ******* Faceted searches are database-intensive. If your server can barely keep up with your traffic, this package will make things worst. Make sure to benchmark performance before deploying this package on a busy site. Requirements ************ - Drupal 5.x (http://drupal.org/project/drupal). - MySQL 4.1 (or later version). Recommended modules ******************* - jQuery Update (http://drupal.org/project/jquery_update): If you wish to use Faceted Search UI's tooltips feature (for showing subcategories when hovering over a category in the guided search), it is strongly recommended to install the jQuery Update module. Make sure to read that module's installation instructions. If you don't use the tooltips feature, Faceted Search UI won't use jQuery at all, so in that case you would not need jQuery Update. - Taxonomy hide (http://drupal.org/project/taxonomy_hide): If you use the Faceted Search UI's Related Categories block, you might want to remove Drupal's default terms listing when viewing a node. You could do that from your site's theme, but another way could be to use the Taxonomy hide module. Known incompatibilities *********************** - PostgreSQL: The Date Authored Facet module uses some MySQL-specific functions. Feel free to share patches to support PostgreSQL (or any other database). :-) Installation ************ 1. Extract the 'faceted_search' module directory, including all its subdirectories, into your Drupal modules directory. 2. Go to the Administer > Site building > Modules page, and enable the following modules: - Faceted Search - Faceted Search UI - At least one of the following modules (which are provided with Faceted Search): - Author Facet - Content Type Facet - Date Authored Facet - Taxonomy Facets - Search (Drupal core module) - Taxonomy (Drupal core module -- only needed if you intend to use Taxonomy Facets) 3. Go to the Administer > Site building > Blocks page, and enable the following blocks: - Faceted search / Current search - Faceted search / Keyword search - Faceted search / Guided search - Faceted search / Related categories - Faceted search / Sort options It is most intuitive for users to have the Current search block located above the Keyword search and Guided search blocks, and the Related categories and Sort options blocks displayed under the content. 4. Go to the Administer > Site configuration > Faceted Search page. 4a. If you have enabled the Author Facet module, click the Author Facet tab and check the roles you'd like to exclude from faceted searches. 4b. If you have enabled the Content Type Facet module, click the Content Type Facet tab and check the content types you'd like to use in faceted searches. 4c. If you have enabled the Date Authored Facet module, click the Date Authored Facet tab and select the date formats you'd like to use in faceted searches. 4d. If you have enabled the Taxonomy Facets module, click the Taxonomy Facets tab and check the vocabularies you'd like to use in faceted searches. If your site does not have vocabularies, you'll have to create them, and populate them with terms. See the Drupal handbook pages on taxonomy for more information (http://drupal.org/handbook/modules/taxonomy). 5. Click the Settings tab and assign weights and maximum number of categories to each facet. These options apply to the Current search and Guided search blocks. 6. Go to the Administer > User management > Access control page, and grant the "use faceted search" permission to the roles you intend to give access to faceted search. Support ******* For support requests, bug reports, and feature requests, please use Faceted Search's issue queue on http://drupal.org/project/issues/faceted_search. You may also contact the author for paid customizations to this module (http://davidlesieur.com/contact). Credits ******* * Project initiated and developed by David Lesieur (http://davidlesieur.com, http://drupal.org/user/17157). * Sponsored in part by Laboratoire NT2 (http://www.labo-nt2.uqam.ca) and Eyos BV (http://www.eyos.nl). * The superb Flamenco search interface (http://flamenco.berkeley.edu) has provided, and still provides, most of the inspiration for this project. See also ******** - Biblio Facets (http://drupal.org/project/biblio_facets): Integrates Faceted Search with Biblio (http://drupal.org/project/biblio) to navigate Biblio's types and fields as facets.