Category Sections

[danf]

I want to be able to create custom sections around the results for each category (or custom field) and always display the results for the categories in the same order(i.e. always have results for category 1 always first, then within category 1, the results are based on normal matching algorithm, then category 2, etc)

First question: would it be best to use cgi and xml query for this instead of trying to modify the resulting results code to display in this manner? I would think so..

Second: Using cgi and xml query, would it be best to search for all results, then group xml based on categories and then display. Or, should I perform a different query and limit the query to just the category I want, then display each one. So, if I have 5 categories, there would be 5 different search queries which then get displayed in their perspective section on the results page?

Or, is this a job only for the API instead of trying to use cgi/xml?

Or, is this not even a proper use of the software to begin with

thanks for any insights...

[Ray]

1) Yes, it is best to post-process the XML results provided you have the skills to do so. This allows you to update to new builds for bug fixes and patch releases without having to reapply your code changes each time. We can't provide support for customized script code.

Also, it allows you to use the high performance CGI version. Otherwise you would be restricted to customizations with the PHP or ASP versions. The CGI source code (C/C++) is only available through the SDK and can be tricky to recompile on your server platform.

2) It depends on how sophisticated your method/algorithm is for categorizing. If you have some clever/optimization plans to group the results yourself, then your first method may be faster. The second method has an overhead in making each search request per category. But if your own grouping methods are not as fast as ours, and takes longer than the increased overhead, then the second method may be faster.

I should add that there might be more to this that you need to think about. We originally thought about adding this to V6 but it fell out of priority. There's a lot of configuration options that are important to make it workable.

For example, imagine you have 10 categories. The most relevant results might be in category 9 and 10. But what you suggest would have this at the very bottom of the page, after 8 categories (each with possibly 5 or more results). It also presumes that you will only serve one page with this "category grouped results", and that you won't split this to multiple pages. If you do want to split it to multiple pages, then it gets even less usable. Anyway, some things to think about.

[danf]

Thanks for the reply. Understood on the different scenarios. I would love to see this functionality as part of the product in the future.

The big thing I wanted to know was whether I could do it without having to purchase the SDK or not, so sounds like doable with cgi/xml (and yes, I have the skillz! I hope!)

I will only have 5 categories, so am going to try doing 5 different queries approach. I am rebuilding a site that currently does this via database queries 5 times, once for each category, so it can't be any slower than it is now