Architectural overview

AJAX Solr loosely follows the Model-view-controller pattern. The ParameterStore is the model, storing the Solr parameters and, thus, the state of the application. The Manager is the controller; it talks to the ParameterStore, sends requests to Solr, and delegates the response to the widgets for rendering. The widgets, along with any theme functions, are the views, each rendering a part of the interface.

Manager

The manager takes as a parameter either solrUrl – if talking to Solr directly – or proxyUrl – if talking to Solr through a proxy. (Usually, you want to talk to the instance through a proxy, so as not to expose the Solr instance to the Internet.) solrUrl must be the absolute URL to the Solr select servlet, or equivalent.

Manager = new AjaxSolr.Manager({
  solrUrl: 'http://example.solrstuff.org/solrjs/select',
});

The ParameterStore and the widgets attach themselves to the Manager with the setStore and addWidget methods, respectively:

Manager.setStore(new AjaxSolr.ParameterStore());

Manager.addWidget(new AjaxSolr.AbstractWidget({
  id: 'identifier',
  target: '#css-selector'
}));

Once these are attached, the Manager’s init method is typically called, to initialize AJAX Solr. init also calls the init methods of the ParameterStore and widgets:

Manager.init();

Having initialized AJAX Solr, the Manager’s doRequest method is typically called, to send the first request to Solr:

Manager.doRequest();

doRequest calls each widget’s beforeRequest method, in case any widget wishes to perform some action before the request is sent to Solr, e.g. display a throbber. It then calls the executeRequest abstract method to send the request. AJAX Solr is JavaScript framework-agnostic; it only requires an AJAX implementation to send requests to Solr. AJAX Solr is distributed with a Manager.jquery.js file, which implements the executeRequest method using jQuery. Once the Manager receives a response from Solr, it caches the response in its response property, and calls each widget’s afterRequest method, in which widgets will inspect the response and update the interface accordingly.