Text search

The solution described here is specific for Firestore

If you are developing your own datasource, you are free to implement text search in whatever way it makes sense.

Firestore does not support native text search, so we need to rely on external solutions. If you specify a textSearchEnabled flag to the collection, you will see a search bar on top of the collection view.

You need to define a FirestoreTextSearchControllerBuilder and add it to your config. Typically, you will want to index your entities in some external solution, such as Algolia. For this to work you need to set up an AlgoliaSearch account and manage the indexing of your documents.

You can achieve this by implementing a Google Cloud Function that listens to Firestore changes and updates the Algolia index. There is also a Firebase extension for the very same purpose.

Using Algolia in FireCMS Cloud

We provide a utility method for performing searches in Algolia performAlgoliaTextSearch

Example:

import algoliasearch, { SearchClient } from "algoliasearch";

import {
    performAlgoliaTextSearch,
    FirestoreTextSearchController,
    buildCollection,
    FireCMSCloudApp,
    EntityCollectionsBuilder
} from "@firecms/cloud";

const client: SearchClient | undefined = algoliasearch("YOUR_ALGOLIA_APP_ID", "YOUR_ALGOLIA_SEARCH_KEY");

const productsIndex = client.initIndex("products");

const textSearchController: FirestoreTextSearchController =
    ({
         path,
         searchString
     }) => {
        if (path === "products")
            return performAlgoliaTextSearch(productsIndex, searchString);
        return undefined;
    };

export default function App() {

    const productCollection = buildCollection({
        path: "products",
        name: "Products",
        textSearchEnabled: true,
        properties: {
            name: {
                dataType: "string",
                name: "Name",
                validation: { required: true }
            }
        }
    });

    return <FireCMSCloudApp
        name={"My Online Shop"}
        collections={[productCollection]}
        textSearchController={textSearchController}
        firebaseConfig={firebaseConfig}
    />;
}

Using Algolia in FireCMS PRO

For FireCMS PRO, you need to define a FirestoreTextSearchControllerBuilder.

import algoliasearch, { SearchClient } from "algoliasearch";

import { buildAlgoliaSearchController, performAlgoliaTextSearch } from "@firecms/firebase";

const client: SearchClient | undefined = algoliasearch("YOUR_ALGOLIA_APP_ID", "YOUR_ALGOLIA_SEARCH_KEY");

const productsIndex = client && client.initIndex("products");

export const algoliaSearchControllerBuilder = buildAlgoliaSearchController({
    isPathSupported: (path) => {
        return ["products"].includes(path);
    },
    search: ({
                 path,
                 searchString
             }) => {
        if (path === "products")
            return productsIndex && performAlgoliaTextSearch(productsIndex, searchString);
        return undefined;
    }
});


export function App() {

    // ...
    const firestoreDelegate = useFirestoreDelegate({
        firebaseApp,
        textSearchControllerBuilder: algoliaSearchControllerBuilder
    });
    // ...
}

Local text search

Since FireCMS v3 we provide a local text search implementation. This is useful for small collections or when you want to provide a quick way to search through your data.

However, for larger collections, you will want to use an external search provider, such as Algolia. This is the recommended approach.

You can use local text search in FireCMS Cloud, or in self-hosted versions.

For FireCMS Cloud, you just need to enable it with the UI.

For self-hosted versions, you can enable it by setting the localTextSearchEnabled in useFirestoreDelegate. Then you need to mark each collection with textSearchEnabled: true.