Proposal-Custom Parametric Search Module

Overview: This project aims to provide an easy mean for site developers to create custom parametric search forms and result pages for different content types, much like those of e-commerce sites. The current idea is to create a module for creating search UI depending on CKK and Views. This module will provide flexibility for combining search parameters (operations, priorities, dependences, etc.) and customizability in the look of both search forms and result pages.

Description:
While creating parametric search forms in Drupal can be done using CCK content fields, Views, and a bit of PHP hack, it still costs a lot of works, learning, and frustration for Drupal beginners (for example, to create a simple range search in View, they have to do this). There should be an easier way since parametric search is a basic and vital feature for sites with itemized information such as e-commerce or social networking.

Also, while exposed fields in Views provides some basic abilities to create search forms and result pages based on CCK content fields, it does not offer much flexibility, say, if you want to create a parametric search system capable of:

• searching product prices in ranges or predefined ranges
• creating dependent and related input field, e.g. only by specifying 'computer manufacturer' can users then select for 'model'
• specifying priorities of each parameters for result ranking, e.g. 'required safety rating is more important than desired price range'
• handling unconventional data type using custom input widgets, such as calendar or geographical locations

, you will find yourself doing lot of hacks.

As a solution, this project aims to create modules to, ultimately, let site developers :

1. create and customize flexible parametric search forms (blocks or pages) easily
2. link created search forms with content database: CCK fields, content type, node information, etc.
3. and, design search result pages for each search forms.

To achieve "easiness" in (1.), the search form creation tool should be WYSIWYG, the interesting way to do this is to integrate with Form Builder. For "flexibility", the tool should be able to create forms with:

• common text, taxonomy, type, scope search
• numerical input: range, multi-range, predefined ranges, calculation (computed field)
• date, time, and calendar
• dependent or related input field: sequential or conditional
• optional priorities input field for sorting search results
• support for custom input widget, (JAVA/PHP) (and possibly custom query comparison mechanism)
• customizable appearance- label, button, layout, etc.

For (2.), given the above desire flexibility, integrating with CKK alone might not be suffice.It might be necessary to fiddle with SQL directly, such as when calculating date-time different (likes Date Range Filter for Views) or custom datatype query, e.g. images or map coordinates.

As for (3.), I think it's OK to integrate with Views, since it is already doing quite a good job in this, although there might be some modification needed to add some more customizability (e.g. to create 'product listing page' styled result pages). Therefore one of the proposed module might be a submodule of Views.

Mentors: Two mentors who are interested or experienced in Views and CKK hacks would be very swell. And I'd like to have one local mentor (Thailand).

Difficulty: Easy to Medium