[TYPO3-Solr] how to display tt_news items with thumbnails?

[Jigal van Hemert]

Hi,

On 13/01/2015 11:22, COZANET Mathieu wrote:
> Thanks Olivier, this is a first step! (except when image doesn't
> exist, I don't find for the moment how to replace it)

For any situation where I need more complex output in the search results 
(such as images, but also direct links to mail addresses, tables with 
data, etcetera) I used a two level approach:

- there should not be HTML in the fields in the solr index; this will 
cause problems with search result search word highlighting (solr will 
wrap search words and won't look at existing markup)
- store the extra info in dynamic fields [1] in the documents in the 
solr index, such as the image URL; use a field type that is not 
tokenized to prevent hits for search words inside these fields
- use the renderingInstructions configuration in the search results 
section to create the formatted output (including any markup of your own)
- you can now use the fields in the rendering instructions section as 
markers in the template

Rendering the (thumbnail) images in the index section of the solr 
configuration has the advantage that this is done during indexing and 
that displaying the search results is faster. The disadvantage is that 
if you remove the temporary files (images) you have to re-index your 
site for the images to be recreated.
You could render the images in the rendering instructions of the search 
results section in the solr configuration, but then this might slow down 
the search results if the visitor gets a lot of results which do not 
have a cached thumbnail image yet.

> But tt_news build thumbnails I would like to access. I can't find
> where thumbnails filenames are recorded in database :(

Thumbnails are not recorded as records and not recorded inside tt_news. 
The TypoScript configuration of tt_news defines how the thumbnails must 
be created. From this configuration a hash is created which is used in 
the name of the cached thumbnail image. This way TYPO3 doesn't need to 
recreate thumbnail images each time as long as the configuration of the 
thumbnail stays the same.

> I'm a bit surprised it doesn't seem to be anyone who tried to
> associate tt_news and solr in a "user friendly" way... and asked for
> help on the web trying to do it!

There was a thread long ago in this list about creating thumbnails in 
the search results. Furthermore, the requirements for each project are 
different. There is enough flexibility in the configuration of solr to 
create the desired output. There is never a single solution for all 
cases. The configuration that is included in the solr extension is just 
an example of a very basic configuration. It's a starting point for your 
own configuration once you've seen that it's possible to index the news 
items.

[1] https://forge.typo3.org/projects/extension-solr/wiki/Dynamic_Fields


-- 
Jigal van Hemert
TYPO3 CMS Active Contributor

TYPO3 .... inspiring people to share!
Get involved: typo3.org