Drupal is a very popular Open Source Content Management System (CMS) offering a Content Management Framework (CMF) written in PHP.

Drupal is complemented by a very active and productive community of developers, who offer more than 10 000 add-ons called Drupal Modules. It is a very customizable CMS and it is one of the more powerful ones.

Drupal includes a search component, but because this advanced CMS allows you to build very powerful applications, we wanted to provide the Drupal developers' community with a search engine of the same very professional level, with high-end possibilities.

With the OpenSearchServer module for Drupal we offer a full-featured and powerful search engine for better professional applications that can be easily integrated.

The OpenSearchServer module for Drupal is still in the sandbox stage for now, while we are waiting for final approval from the Drupal team very soon.

How to install and activate OpenSearchServer for a Drupal Module

Installing OpenSearchServer and Drupal

First, install an OpenSearchServer instance on a computer that will provide the search ability for Drupal applications and host the index. Then Drupal should be installed on that same computer or on a different computer.

Interconnecting Drupal and OpenSearchServer

At drupal.org/sandbox/ekeller/1128202, you will be able to download the OpenSearchServer files and copy them into the sub-directory Modules of your Drupal application.

Then go to the administration interface of Drupal, click on “OpenSearchServer settings” and fill in the information requested, as in the window below. Indexing of chosen components will start immediately.

 The index will be created and will allow you to create any search application within your Drupal project.

Direct access to advanced OpenSearchServer features for Drupal developers

Easy selection of index content: You will have full control of what will the index include. By only checking some boxes you will decide which type of content and category will be indexed or not.

Facetting: You can decide to offer your visitors to automatically filter anddisplay the answers based on content types, dates and categories.

Indexing interval: Depending on your application, you decide how often the index will be updated.

Snippets: When adding a snippet on your results, you will have a selected summary of each document in the answer.

Logging Searches: We know how Search queries are important and how they reflect expectations of your visitors. This feature will provide you with a report of all searches made to allow any further analysis.

Any change to these OpenSearchServer parameters will be taken into account instantly by your application as OpenSearchServer work with "hot changes".

Results integration

The results of queries returned by OpenSearchServer will be stored in the format of the traditional template, which can then be easily displayed in your application, as shown below.

Please note the automatic faceting that will allow an automatic filtering of the results returned, allowing you to display a defined set  of Categories, Dates and Types.

Some advanced features you will appreciate

Should you needed to define an advanced OpenSearchServer parameter or use an advanced feature for your Search, you just have to enter OpenSearchServer, and make your change. Any modification will be instantly pushed to your Drupal application.

You will be in total control of all OpenSearchServer parameters and you will be able to fine-tune the use of full text filters to apply the appropriate processing to data.

You can easily define synonyms so that your users will have greater flexibility when they are entering their queries. For instance, they will be able to type the strings "first" or "1st" or "1st" and get the same results from all.

You will also be able to add stopwords that will be filtered out of the index-building and query process.

You can also focus on faceting possibilities, and customize it to your own needs.

A multitude of advanced features is available in OpenSearchServer and we are sure you will enjoy improving your application with the power they will provide for you.

All of the functionality of OpenSearchServer is described in our online documentation.