Waiting to load results until search using filterrific

Question

Does anybody know a way to make filterrific hold results until the user begins a search?

By default, filterrific displays unfiltered, paginated results to the user but I only need results once the user starts to type in the search query field.

Default filterrific gem behavior

Answer 1

Here is a reworked example from the gem documentation. The concept is to return empty array if there is no search params for filterrific.

def index
  @filterrific = initialize_filterrific(
    Student,
    params[:filterrific]
  ) 

  @students = @filterrific.find.page(params[:page]) if params[:filterrific].present?
    @students = [] if params[:filterrific].blank?

  respond_to do |format|
    format.html
    format.js
  end
end