Blog Post
On a more serious note - Why can we not change more in the Search template?
From what I can see all I can do currently is:
- Change the section order
- e.g. by placing the search bar below results (why would I want to do that?)
- Add a new section (Custom widget, Text/HTML widget)
All the things I would want to do I cannot do currently:
- Move Places above Users. (This is still puzzling to me. Wouldn't 99% of search be about finding content or the right place, rather then another user. Only use case I can see is moderation staff)
- Modify filters available or change order of filters
- Pre-set constrain/location (e.g. if I have a community with 9 locales, I want the Global Search to be preset to only search in my current language top-category, not all of them).
I get that this is phase 1 of this page template, but why even include it in the release notes, when we seemingly can't do anything useful with it yet?
All that said, I do appreciate a lot of the other stuff in this release.
The primary goal of making the search page a configurable template is to enable communities to integrate third-party systems by passing search queries and filters to external sites or applications. With support for custom endpoints and React components, the search page can display results from one or more integrated sources, making it a flexible hub for cross-platform search experiences.
Move Places above Users. (This is still puzzling to me. Wouldn't 99% of search be about finding content or the right place, rather then another user. Only use case I can see is moderation staff)
We agree and missed this change in the default template. We will plan to change the default order of these components.
Modify filters available or change order of filters
Because the filters are part of the search query, these wouldn't be moved into their own widget separate from the query box, however we can add additional configurability for the search query filters to support enabling, ordering, or even something like a sidebar view in the future.
Pre-set constrain/location (e.g. if I have a community with 9 locales, I want the Global Search to be preset to only search in my current language top-category, not all of them).
I get that this is phase 1 of this page template, but why even include it in the release notes, when we seemingly can't do anything useful with it yet?
We have this story filed and work is starting on it soon. The plan will be to adjust the scope of search to the top level category when you are in a top level category.