Plugin: Tabs - extra searches
Purpose
Use this plugin when you want to display extra search results only when a specific tab is selected.
Extra searches provide the ability to show additional or related content for your search, such as social media or events by allowing additional searches by to run in parallel to retrieve the related content.
When to use this plugin
Use this plugin when you have tabs defined, and would like to have different supplemental/extra search results displayed depending on which tab is selected.
There are three main reasons why this is useful:
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Extra searches are often setup to separate some content (such as social media posts) when viewing the main set of search results. These searches often also have a dedicated social media tab, and it is unlikely that the social media extra search will be required on a tab which returns only social media results.
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Every extra search that runs will slow your search down. Being able to define which extra searches should run means you can optimize the experience for your users.
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Creating your search template is simpler because you don’t need to hide extra search results that don’t apply for specific tabs.
Usage
Enable the plugin
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Select Plugins from the side navigation pane and click on the Tabs - extra searches tile.
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From the Location section, select the results page to which you would like to enable this plugin from the Select a results page select list.
| The plugin will take effect as soon as you finish running through the plugin setup steps. |
Configuration settings
The configuration settings section is where you do most of the configuration for your plugin. The settings enable you to control how the plugin behaves.
| The configuration key names below are only used if you are configuring this plugin manually. The configuration keys are set in the results page configuration to configure the plugin. When setting the keys manually you need to type in (or copy and paste) the key name and value. |
Extra searches to enable - default
Configuration key |
|
Data type |
array |
Default value |
|
Required |
This setting is optional |
Defines a default set of extra searches that will run on tabs. Configuration for a specific tab overrides this option.
Use this setting if you when you only wish to define the extra searches that will run.
Extra searches to enable - specified tab
Configuration key |
|
Data type |
array |
Default value |
|
Required |
This setting is optional |
Defines the set of extra searches that will run on the tab with a name matching the Parameter 1 value.
Use this setting if you when you only wish to define the extra searches that will run.
Extra searched to disable - default
Configuration key |
|
Data type |
array |
Default value |
|
Required |
This setting is optional |
Defines a default set of extra searches that will not run on tabs. Configuration for a specific tab overrides this option.
Use this setting if you when you only wish to define the extra searches that will not run.
Extra searched to disable - specified tab
Configuration key |
|
Data type |
array |
Default value |
|
Required |
This setting is optional |
Defines the set of extra searches that will not run on the tab with a name matching the Parameter 1 value.
Use this setting if you when you only wish to define the extra searches that will not run.
Notes
When configuring this plugin you should choose to either use the options that define the extra searches to run (whitelist), or use the options that define the extra searches that should not run (blacklist). Mixing the configuration options is not recommended.
| This plugin requires the tab facet to be named Tabs. |
Examples
The examples below are configured on a search that has the following tabs and extra searches defined:
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Four configured tabs: All results, Courses, Events, Social media
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Four configured extra searches: courses, events, profiles, twitter
Disable courses, events and twitter extra searches on their respective tabs to prevent duplicate results from showing
Duplicate results can appear when extra searches are displayed on tabs which are derived from the same content.
For example, it is not useful to display course results from the extra search alongside course results from the courses tab as the content will be the same.
To prevent this from happening, set the following in the results page configuration:
| Configuration key name | Parameter 1 | Value |
|---|---|---|
Extra searches to disable - specified tab |
|
|
Extra searches to disable - specified tab |
|
|
Extra searches to disable - specified tab |
|
|
alternatively (although more verbose):
| Configuration key name | Parameter 1 | Value |
|---|---|---|
Extra searches to enable - specified tab |
|
|
Extra searches to enable - specified tab |
|
|
Extra searches to enable - specified tab |
|
|
Only display extra searches on the all results tab
It is fairly common approach to use extra searches on the all results tab to display top results for some associated content types that are separated from the main set of search results.
For example, separating out tweets because you do not want to flood your search results with low-value ephemeral content, or separating out other specific content types because you want to provide diversity in your main set of search results.
If a user narrows their search to a particular tab many of these extra searches become irrelevant. In this scenario, it would make more sense to disable extra searches on other tabs by using the following results page configuration:
This configuration disables the courses, events, profiles and twitter searches on all tabs except for all results:
| Configuration key name | Parameter 1 | Value |
|---|---|---|
Extra searches to disable - default |
|
|
Extra searches to disable - specified tab |
|
(empty) |
Disabling all extra searches by default
| This option is useful if you have multiple templates defined for the same results page, and only want extra searches disabled for the pages that include tabs. |
In the unlikely scenario that all extra searches need to be disabled by default, you can use the following result page configuration:
| Configuration key name | Value |
|---|---|
Extra searches to disable - default |
|
Alternatively, you can use the following:
| Configuration key name | Value |
|---|---|
Extra searches to enable - default |
(empty) |