I have just finished installing the new beta of JXtended’s Finder component, and it works beautifully.
The first thing that you notice after installing the component is the very cool Googlesque predictive search terms that Finder provides. The only thing missing is the ability to be able to tap down on the keyboard and press return to search. Right now you need to click on your desired search query from the list and then press return.
There is further polish when you see your list of search results. Every instance of your search term is highlighted:
And then when you click on on of your results, Finder continues to highlight the query!
The best thing about Finder is that it’s an index based search component. This means that it searches a single table of entries rather than the whole site. This means:
- Speed: this search is so speedy.
- Control: you can publish and unpublish your items in the search table to be displayed in results. Ie: you can turn off the custom 404 page, remove dead links, choose which types of components articles should be displayed (such as contacts, or weblinks).
The only drawback from this type of search is that any type of content to be searched needs a plugin to talk to Finder. JXtended builds in plugins for all core Joomla! components, and many third party components. Check out their website for more info.
Filed under: Third Party Updates
