Search in Front End

There is an integrated search for Issues with the standard Joomla search facility. The fields that are searched are the issue summary, the issues description and the issue resolution fields. In addition the issue alias is searched, enabling users to search for their specific issue number.

[Note]Note

Issues have to be published before they are visible upon the front end on the site. The issue progress field is NOT searched.

A smart search (finder) plug-in is also provided and is also enabled on installation. There have been several improvements added to the plugin and it is fully functional for those sites that prefer this particular search mechanism.

Search Criteria.

The two search mechanisms provided in Joomla i.e. The 'old' search and the new 'Finder' (smart search) methods are similar. The main differences are that the 'Finder' (Smart search) method indexes all content in its own tables and delivers the results back to the invoker from its internal collections. For this reason the finder search plugin collects information upon the access permissions upon issues (and projects) so that the correct information is delivered meeting security criteria.

The 'old' search mechanism searches the issues and projects in real time so incorporates the selection criteria and security checks within the plugin directly.

The following criteria are responsible for determining whether an issue (or project) is included within the search results.

  1. Is the issue published?

    All issues and projects need to be 'published' before they are available to be seen in search results.

  2. Is the issue private?

    Issues can be marked private and may well contain information that should not be displayed at all. Information such as login and password details are typically classed as private. These types of issues are usually totally excluded from search results.

Filter in the access permissions of the user:

A user is associated with certain 'user groups'. Typically these would be groups such as 'Public', 'Registered', 'Author' etc. although there may be many other types of defined groups in a typical Joomla system.

Guest uses who are not registered upon a site are assigned to the 'Public' group.

Issues and projects (version 1.3.4 and over) are given a specific group when the issue or project is saved. By default this is usually the 'Public' group.

When a search is performed a check is made upon which groups the user is part of, and compared to the groups associated with the issue and the project.

  1. The project to which the issue belongs.

  2. The issue itself.

If the user is not part of the group to which the issue AND project are part that issue/project would not be part of the search results.

[Important]Important

The contents of the progress field of the issue by design is NOT searched and thus would not contribute to an entry in the search results.

[Note]Note

The issue summary, description, resolution and alias are used for the search.