Rails - Using Metasearch / Ransack with a single textfield

Question

Does anyone know if its possible to use the Metasearch / Ransack gem with a single textfield instead of multiple textfields? For my app, I just want to search two associated attributes in my model and full text searching seems like overkill. Anyways, any help would be much appreciated!

Answer 1

Yes of course. The following code holds 4 fields, but you can just have one. Here's a good resource (railscast), but quickly gets into the advanced side of the search which you are trying to avoid: http://railscasts.com/episodes/370-ransack?autoplay=true

Controller

def search
  @search = Entry.search(params[:q])
  @entries = @search.result
end

View (haml)

%h1 Search
= search_form_for @search, :url=>search_entries_path do |f|

  .field
    =f.label :make_or_model_cont, "Make or Model"
    =f.text_field :make_or_model_cont
  .field
    =f.label :last_four_cont, "Last Four contains"
    =f.text_field :last_four_cont
  .field
    =f.label :created_at_gt, "Date after"
    =f.text_field :created_at_gt, :class=>"scroller time_field" # using jquery datetime picker plugin
  .field
    =f.label :created_at_lt, "Date is before"
    =f.text_field :created_at_lt, :class=>"scroller time_field"
  .actions
    =f.submit "Search"

=render 'results' # contains table, ths and tr + tds to hold the data