There are many things I love about WordPress — the extendability, the ease of use, and large library of themes available online, to name a few. But if there is one aspect of WordPress that needs a little work, it is the default search functionality.
Recently, I’ve been spending a lot of time working on a search plugin for WordPress that is based on the Lucene search engine — a very cool and powerful search library used by a lot of big places. The plugin is in its beta stage, and ready for use and evaluation by anyone who would like to check it out. The plugin is currently implemented on my blog, so you can use the search box on the upper-right side to see it in action.
wpSearch uses the PHP port of the library by Zend. It also spawned a sub-project, the PHP StandardAnalyzer. You can read more about that here.
The search currently uses a lightbox floating over the page to allow users to navigate search results. An option to integrate the results into the page may be and option in the future.
The major features of wpSearch are:
- Unmatched and customizable search relevancy (that’s the power of Lucene working)
- Very fast search speed
- Wildcard and Boolean operator support
- Easy installation
- Instantly updated searching after a post has been written
- Searching of Posts and Pages
Features for advanced users:
- Customizable interface via CSS
- Access to the internal search service for extendability
wpSearch was written for a development contest at LTech Consulting (a firm specializing in search with Lucene and the Google Search Appliance), but with the full intent of being open source. If anyone is interested in helping develop it, drop me a comment on this post.
Also, if anyone gives this plugin a try and has any suggestions, I would really appreciate your input! Just leave a comment and I’ll get back to you. The plugin will be made available in the WordPress search repository shortly.
Full information about wpSearch (installation instructions, screenshots, etc) is available on wpSearch’s project page.
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24 Comments
i really like you blog. i learned a lot reading here today. Keep up good work. I will make sure i visit this blog daily
Thanks for the post mate. Continue posting like this one.
works great, have installed in my review blog and am very impressed and pleased, thanks
That was great!!
yes as im impress works nice
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As a PHP (Zend) Developer, this is exactly what I have been looking for.
works great, have installed in my review blog and am very impressed and pleased, thanks
it is very useful
I love te colours and lay out of your blog, i really want to get hold of this theme, what are you using?
I want to implement my web site, so I need to use the plugin on my blog, if anyone who would like to check it out. please check out at my web site
Thank you for your help
I need some help to implement my web page… I used wordpress so I need information for plugins
Thank a lot
I wish I understood more about Boolean searching. I know it involves utilyzing specific logic, but not sure what the perameters are. Can anyone direct me on this? Looks like a great plug in.
works great,i have installed in my analyse blog and am very impressed and pleased, thanks
i really like you blog. i learned a lot reading here today. Keep up good work. I will make sure i visit this blog daily
works great,i have installed in my analyse blog and am very impressed and pleased, thanks
great site. Thank you for this useful piece of information. it helped me out a lot
I am getting no search results when searching multiple terms using Chrome browser..
works great,i have installed in my analyse blog and am very impressed and pleased, thanks
hahahah…hahaha
I need some help to implement my web page… I used wordpress so I need information for plugins
Thank a lot
I’ve just installed it to one of my blog and it works perfectly for me. Thank you for the great work.
Thanks a lot…. i learned a lot… i’ve just installed it on my blog and it works perfectly..
again thank you so much….
I have just installed it to one of my blog and it works perfectly for me. Thank a lot. Works great.
Good Content Thanks…
Thats great for small wordpress sites
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[...] (more info in my previous post), the lucene-powered search plugin for WordPress, has officially been accepted into the WordPress [...]
[...] A Lucene based Search Plugin For WordPress Posted by root 3 days ago (http://codefury.net) Wpsearch was written for a development contest at ltech consulting a firm if anyone is interested in helping develop it drop me a comment on this post the lucene powered search plugin for wordpress has officially been Discuss | Bury | News | A Lucene based Search Plugin For WordPress [...]
[...] http://www.htootayzar.com/myblog/2008/05/proudly-powered-by-wordpress/ http://codefury.net/2008/06/a-lucene-based-search-plugin-for-wordpress/ http://www.animeyoshi.net/2008/05/animeyoshi-is-now-powered-by-wordpress/ [...]