Partial search in Sitecore Multilist with Search type of field

Question

I am using the multi-list with search field in my project. I have many items to render within (approx 400), so it's not possible for the users to scroll through and choose a specific one. There is one item named "Gracy-Timoth" when I type in the search box "gra" it's not giving me the "gracy-timoth" in fact it's showing all empty, but when I pass the complete name "gracy", it gives me the result. I want to get result on typing the partial words such as "gra" for "gracy-timoth".

I am using the below query as Datasource for multi-list with search.

StartSearchLocation={00000000-0000-0000-0000-000000000000}&TemplateFilter={00000000-0000-0000-0000-000000000000}

here I am passing the correct guid accordingly. Any suggestion on this issue? Thanks in advance.

Answer 1

Welcome to Sitecore Stack Exchange. I think by default sitecore is doing an exact search of the text entered in the search box (for example test1), if you take a look in the saerch log it will have a query like this:

?q=((((-_group:(66a1aed3af694bcab42171c1e6331a98)  *:*) AND (((_content:(test1) OR _name:(test1) OR _displayname:(test1)) AND _path:(110d559fdea542ea9c1c8a5df7e70ef9)) AND _latestversion:(True))) AND _datasource:(sitecore)) AND _latestversion:(1))&start=0&rows=20&fl=*,score&fq=_indexname:(sitecore_master_index)&wt=xml

Unfortunately there is no OOTB way to change the search query unless specifying * in the search box like tes*. One option would be to try to append this * to the text from javascript when sitecore makes the search call, the field is using the js file /sitecore/shell/Controls/BucketList/BucketList.js, you can take a look at the event $('filterBox' + self.clientId).observe('keyup', function () {.

If you want to change the query from code you would need to change the existing implementation. When performing a search you will see that it is calling /sitecore/shell/Applications/Buckets/Services/Search.ashx, which is built in the Sitecore.Buckets.Client dll in the namespace ItemBuckets.Services.Search.

namespace ItemBuckets.Services
{
  /// <summary>Search End Point</summary>
  public class Search : SearchHttpTaskAsyncHandler, IRequiresSessionState
  {

This class inherits from the SearchHttpTaskAsyncHandler which has a method that extracts the query from the parameters:

public void ExtractSearchQuery(NameValueCollection parameters)
{
   case "fromBucketListField":
      if (parameters[index] != "*")
      {
         this.searchQuery.Add(new SearchStringModel()
         {
            Type = "text",
            Value = parameters[index],
            Operation = "must"
          });
          continue;
       }

You would need to built your own implementation of Search.ashx and you can override the path specified in the field code source in Sitecore.Buckets.FieldTypes.BucketList:

public class BucketList : SearchList
{
   protected override string ScriptParameters => string.Format("'{0}'", (object) string.Join("', '", (object) this.ID,     
    (object) this.ClientID, (object) this.PageNumber, (object) "/sitecore/shell/Applications/Buckets/Services/Search.ashx"

You can take a look at an example of a custom implementation here http://sitecoreexperiences.blogspot.com/2015/08/serving-non-sitecore-data-in-sitecore_51.html

Answer 2

You can search for part of the words in the searchbox by using the * character. For example in your case it would be gra*.