Search Queries with Stream Widgets

LiveWhale
1

I have this widget on our search page:

<widget type="pages">
   <arg id="header">Pages</arg>
   <arg id="max">30</arg>
   <arg id="paginate">5</arg>
   <arg id="search"><xphp var="q" type="get"/></arg>
   <arg id="format">
      <span class="search-item-title"><strong>{title}</strong></span><br />
      <span class="search-item-group">{group_title}{!group_title:"Beloit College"}</span>
   </arg>
</widget>

The default sort appears to take the search relevancy into account.

Page widget sort options.

I have a request to incorporate certain blurb types (resources, policies, etc) into this search. So, I tried making a similar widget for the blurbs, then a stream widget to merge them.

My issue is that the stream widget’s default behavior doesn’t appear to consider search relevancy. The original widgets determine which results are relevant (assuming the search is passed along to the source widgets), then the stream widget sorts them into newest/last-modified order. Thus, the obvious result (“biology” to Biology department, for example) is in the list, but rarely first.

Stream widget sort options.

I did some troubleshooting on terms like “geology” and “environmental” by defining keywords in page meta. However, I noticed that whichever I edit last is the first result every time (assuming the page is relevant).

Thus, how might I achieve the following?

  • Have a stream widget drawing on pages and certain blurb types.
  • Limited to relevant matches of a given search term.
  • With results sorted by their relevancy?

Or will I have to add another section or two to the search page for “Resources”?

Thanks,
Nick

2

Hi Nick,

Thanks for writing. Hmm…yes, I see how that stream widget can be a little finicky as it’s combining those results together and making sure that sort order is maintained. We can file the stream widget’s behavior to investigate further—although I can’t say how at the moment how soon we’ll be able to prioritize it.

However, I think the simplest approach and what we’d recommend being best is to include multiple widgets on the search page for the intended results.

So yes, as you mentioned, adding a section or two to the search results page to include those blurbs under “Research” would probably be the best route.

Let us know if we can say more about this though. Thanks!
Rachael