Adding search providers

The global search in the top menu of Episerver (OnlineCenter) features search functionality by aggregating results from several search providers. You can search any type of content, and each provider reports results based on a specific category, such as pages, blog posts, or files.

For Episerver, the following search providers are included:

• PageSearchProvider searches for CMS pages (including page content).
• FileSearchProvider searches for CMS documents.
• BlockSearchProvider searches for blocks.

Using the [SearchProvider] attribute

To add a custom search provider, configure your assembly as a shell module (see documentation about shell modules). Next, implement the ISearchProvider interface and decorate the class with the [SearchProvider] attribute.

Properties

• Area prioritizes search providers in the current area such that search providers for the CMS area are placed first when performing a search from the edit and admin interfaces.
• Category is a display name in the user interface.

Methods

• Search returns an enumeration of results for the given query.

Example

[SearchProvider] 
    public class FilesSearchProvider : ISearchProvider
           {
    /// <summary>
    /// Area that the provider mapps to, used for spotlight searching
    /// </summary>
    public string Area
    {
        get { return "CMS"; }
    }

    /// <summary>
                /// The category that the provider returns hits in
                /// </summary>
                public string Category
                {
        get { return "Files"; }
    }

    public IEnumerable<SearchResult> Search(Query query)
                {
        return ...
    }
            }