Implement Custom Search Plugin for Joomla

Question

I would like to implement a Custom Search Plugin for Joomla 3.5.1. I am new to Joomla and still busy getting my feet together.

I recently implemented a plugin that adds custom/extra fields (5 fields, free text inputs) to an article in Joomla 3.5.1. I followed their tutorial on how to get this right and so far so good. This plugin saves the extra/custom fields in the #__user_profiles table as per their tutorial. I could obviously save it to a different table but since I am learning, I kept it simple. This plugin works perfectly and I can capture the extra fields and saves successfully and the data is saved along with the article id being edited/created.

My next task is to create another site/front-end "search" (or smart search) plugin. This plugin must group the 4 field's values and provide them to the user in the front-end as selects/dropdowns.

Is there someone that can give me a lead on how I can archive this. Must I implement it as a search or smart search plugin? Is it even possible to archive what I am trying to archive?

This search plugin will only appear on one page but that I know I can config correctly once I've a plugin. Once user searches, the system must post back the selected options and I will search the "#__user_profiles" for any matching profile_key vs profile_value and collect all user_id (article_id) and get these articles from contents table and return this list of articles to the front-end as search results. Anyone can help me into the right direction?

I tried their tutorial of creating a search plugin but I seem lost, mostly I don't know how to dynamically provide my selects/dropdowns with that info saved in the #__user_profiles table.

Please assist in anyway possible...

Answer 1

I don't think that this might be done without modifying core 'search' task. My advise is to advise search view and include extra filtering, then write own 'search' task which allow you to read this data and provide additional results.

By writing just search plugin you can only extend search results by data which is stored outside default Joomla! tables but nothing more.