README

Intro

This module adds support for connecting with meilisearch as (multi-lingual) full-text search engine.

meilisearch

An open-source, lightning-fast, and hyper-relevant search engine that fits effortlessly into your workflow.

Requirements

SilverStripe Framework 6.x
PHP 8.3
meilisearch >= 1.3

Optional

silverstripe/cms — enables the built-in SiteTree index, SearchPage page type, and automatic page search integration
silverstripe-fluent — enables multi-locale indexing with separate indexes per language

Installation

composer require bimthebam/silverstripe-meilisearch ^2.0

Configuration

Environment variables

Variable	Required	Description
`MEILISEARCH_HOST_AND_PORT`	Yes	URL of your meilisearch instance, e.g. `http://your-meilisearch-host:7700`
`MEILISEARCH_MASTER_KEY`	No	Authentication key, if the meilisearch instance requires it
`MEILISEARCH_INDEXES_PREFIX`	No	Prefix for all index names, useful for shared meilisearch instances

Usage

Initialization

Run the built-in task RebuildAllIndexesTask, which will create all the needed indexes within your meilisearch instance and fills them up with contents.

Although not necessary, it is suggested to run the task from CLI.

e.g. sake tasks:meilisearch-rebuild-all-indexes

Search

When silverstripe/cms is installed, this module comes with a pre-defined index for SiteTree. So searching in page contents should mostly work out of the box.

To start, simply add a new page of type SearchPage to your site tree.

Without silverstripe/cms, the module provides the core indexing and search infrastructure for use with custom indexes.

Custom indexes

1. Create a DataObject

Define your DataObject and configure which fields meilisearch should use.

namespace App\Model;

use SilverStripe\ORM\DataObject;

class Product extends DataObject
{
    private static string $table_name = 'Product';

    private static array $db = [
        'Title' => 'Varchar(255)',
        'Description' => 'HTMLText',
        'Price' => 'Currency',
        'Category' => 'Varchar(100)',
        'IsActive' => 'Boolean',
    ];

    private static array $meilisearch_searchable_fields = [
        'Title',
        'Description',
    ];

    private static array $meilisearch_filterable_fields = [
        'Category',
        'IsActive',
    ];

    private static array $meilisearch_sortable_fields = [
        'Title',
        'Price',
    ];
}

If meilisearch_searchable_fields is not defined, the module falls back to Title and Content if present.

Field values are automatically processed based on their type:

Field type	Processing
`HTMLText`, `HTMLVarchar`	HTML tags are stripped
`Boolean`	Cast to `bool`
`Date`, `Time`	Converted to Unix timestamp
All others	Raw value

2. Create an Index class

namespace App\Search;

use App\Model\Product;
use BimTheBam\Meilisearch\Index;

class ProductIndex extends Index
{
    private static string $data_object_base_class = Product::class;

    private static array $excluded_classes = [];

    private static bool $check_can_view = false;
}

Config	Description
`data_object_base_class`	The DataObject class this index handles. All subclasses are included automatically.
`excluded_classes`	Array of DataObject subclasses to exclude from the index.
`check_can_view`	If `true`, search results are filtered by `canView()` permissions.

3. Apply the Searchable extension

For non-versioned DataObjects, apply the Searchable extension. This automatically updates the index on write and delete.

# app/_config/meilisearch.yml
App\Model\Product:
  extensions:
    - BimTheBam\Meilisearch\Model\Extension\Searchable

For versioned DataObjects, use SearchableVersioned instead. This updates the index on publish/unpublish rather than on write.

App\Model\Product:
  extensions:
    - BimTheBam\Meilisearch\Model\Extension\SearchableVersioned

4. Build and populate

Run dev/build to apply the extension, then rebuild the index:

sake dev/build
sake tasks:meilisearch-rebuild-all-indexes

After the initial rebuild, the index is kept in sync automatically via the extension hooks.

5. Searching programmatically

use App\Search\ProductIndex;

$index = ProductIndex::create();
$results = $index->search('search term');

// Access results
foreach ($results->getList() as $result) {
    $product = $result->getRecord(); // Lazy-loads the DataObject
    echo $product->Title;
}

// Paginated results
$paginated = $results->getList(paginated: true, perPage: 10);

The search() method accepts additional parameters:

$results = $index->search(
    q: 'search term',
    filter: ['Category = "Electronics"', 'IsActive = true'],
    limit: 50,
    sort: ['Price:asc'],
);

Filter and sort syntax follows the meilisearch documentation.

Using the SearchForm

If you have multiple indexes, the built-in SearchForm automatically offers a checkbox to let users choose which indexes to search in. Custom indexes are included alongside the SiteTree index (if available) without any additional configuration.

ToDo

Add support for authentication keys
Complete documentation for custom indexes

bimthebam / silverstripe-meilisearch

Maintainers

Package info

Statistics

Security