I would like to allow visitors to a site to search for posts based on various attributes (categories, tags, custom fields).
I have tried using Solr, but this doesn’t appear to work.
I tried using the MySolrServer plugins for a local instance of Solr and a hosted instance, but the plugin doesn’t appear to work.
I also tried using Solr for WordPress, but the plugin wouldn’t enable.
I don’t want to use something like Taxonomy Drill-down.
Bearing those points in mind, how can I now try to implement true faceted search that will enable site visitors to search for posts based on attributes?
One of my favorite ways to do this is to use the Factious plugin. It is still fairly basic and only has a Sidebar widget by default. However, it has an extenable API(ish thing) that lets you write code to place it elsewhere.
The reasons why I like it are this:
- Written by people who know what they are doing (Code for the People WordPress VIP Partners)
- Simple
- Keeps search within WordPress. For me this is huge I’m always skeptical about using third party services.
- Extendable
Not sure if that is what you are looking for but none the less it should be a tiny bit easier than writing custom WP_Query and will be a good “get your feet wet” into WordPress’ Objects.
