Reuters tutorial: step 7

Table of Contents

• Reuters tutorial
• Step 1: Talk to Solr
• Step 2: Add a results widget
• Step 3: Add a pager widget
• Step 4: Add a tagcloud widget
• Step 5: Display the current filters
• Step 6: Add a free-text widget
• Step 7: Add an autocomplete widget
• Step 8: Add a map widget
• Step 9: Add a calendar widget
• Step 10: Support the back button

We’ll now replace the free-text widget we created in the last step with a widget that can do auto-completion on the facet values of the topics, organizations, and exchanges facet fields. For this, we’ll use the jQuery Autocomplete plugin.

Create a new widget, AutocompleteWidget.js, inheriting from AbstractFacetWidget:

(function ($) {
AjaxSolr.AutocompleteWidget = AjaxSolr.AbstractFacetWidget.extend({
});
})(jQuery);

In index.html, replace:

<script type="text/javascript" src="widgets/TextWidget.js"></script>

With:

<link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" href="ext/jquery.autocomplete.css" media="screen" />
<script type="text/javascript" src="ext/jquery.autocomplete.js"></script>
<script type="text/javascript" src="widgets/AutocompleteWidget.js"></script>

And, in reuters.js, replace:

Manager.addWidget(new AjaxSolr.TextWidget({
  id: 'text',
  target: '#search',
  field: 'allText'
}));

With:

Manager.addWidget(new AjaxSolr.AutocompleteWidget({
  id: 'text',
  target: '#search',
  field: 'allText',
  fields: [ 'topics', 'organisations', 'exchanges' ]
}));

The autocompletion widget will take a custom fields parameter, listing the facet fields on which to perform auto-completion. By not hard-coding these facet fields, we make the widget re-usable.

Implement the abstract method afterRequest, like so:

afterRequest: function () {
  $(this.target).find('input').val('');

  var list = [];
  for (var i = 0; i < this.fields.length; i++) {
    var field = this.fields[i];
    for (var facet in this.manager.response.facet_counts.facet_fields[field]) {
      list.push({
        field: field,
        value: facet,
        text: facet + ' (' + this.manager.response.facet_counts.facet_fields[field][facet] + ') - ' + field
      });
    }
  }

  var self = this;
  this.requestSent = false;
  $(this.target).find('input').autocomplete(list, {
    formatItem: function(facet) {
      return facet.text;
    }
  }).result(function(e, facet) {
    self.requestSent = true;
    if (self.manager.store.addByValue('fq', facet.field + ':' + facet.value)) {
      self.manager.doRequest(0);
    }
  }).bind('keydown', function(e) {
    if (self.requestSent === false && e.which == 13) {
      if (self.add($(this).val())) {
        self.manager.doRequest(0);
      }
    }
  });
}

There is, actually, very little going on here specific to your understanding of AJAX Solr. We are again using the ParameterStore addByValue and add API methods, as we did in the results widget and free-text widget, respectively. The rest is jQuery Autocomplete plugin implementation.

[What we have so far]

A limitation is that it will only do auto-completion for the facet values that fall within the facet.limit for the given facet fields. For example, it will only do auto-completion for twenty of the facet values in the exchanges facet field. If we want to do auto-completion for all of its facet values, we will need to retrieve them in a separate Solr request. We can do so by modifying afterRequest:

[What we have so far]

OK, now let’s get fancy and add a map widget.