WebHelp: Integrating an external search solution

[Frank Ralf]

Hi,

One of our customers is thinking about replacing the built-in search of Oxygen Responsive WebHelp with an external search solution like https://www.algolia.com or https://typesense.org for the following reasons:

• Include additional content
• Search facets
• Improved performance

Does anyone already has tried this approach?

Kind regards,
Frank

[kgajda]

I am interested to know, too. Did you ever make any headway?

[Frank Ralf]

Hi,

We did some research on this forum and found that most of the required features are not implemented and not on the short-term development roadmap for Oxygen WebHelp:

• Search across multiple versions of help
• Responsive WebHelp with external HTML files
• Facet-based search in WebHelp based on <topicmeta> and <topicsubject>
• Using metadata to search WebHelp content

So an external search solution seems indeed the best way to go. We implemented Typesense in another project that uses Antora . Setting up the Docsearch indexer proved a bit tricky because the documentation is a bit scattered and incomplete.

Another task would be to create a config file for crawling the Oxygen WebHelp output. There are config files for a number of static site generators available but AFAIK none yet for Oxygen. We have not tried the implementation yet, though.

Hope that helps.

Best regards,
Frank

[beniamin_savu]

Hi,

It is possible to integrate a custom search engine into your WebHelp Responsive output. This will allow you to have full control on how the search engine will behave. You will be able to implement your own mechanism of indexing, parsing the HTML files and to process the search queries.

Oxygen WehHelp offers 2 methods for replacing the built-in search engine:
1. One of the methods allows you to replace WebHelp's built-in search engine with your own custom search engine and also to replace the search results area with a custom HTML content. More details can be found in our documentation: How to Configure a Custom Search Engine
2. The second method is to replace only the WebHelp's built-in search engine with your own custom search engine and use the built-in search result area to present the search results. More details can be found in our documentation: How to Replace WebHelp Search Engine

Another solution is to use Oxygen Feedback's search functionality which can be integrated in a WebHelp Responsive output. You can make a one month trial to test it. Oxygen Feedback comes in 2 editions: cloud and enterprise. The cloud edition allows you to have a fast start-up process and no software installation is required. The cloud version can be accessed using the following link: https://feedback.oxygenxml.com/

Oxygen Feedback's search functionality is a server-side search process which can provide faster and more relevant search result to the user. It is not limited by the resources available on the user's device. The default search engine that comes bundled in WebHelp Responsive is a client-side search process which requires downloading the entire search index to the user's device, can be limited by the resources available on the user's device and it can become slow and less efficient.

To get started with Oxygen Feedback search functionality we suggest to view the webinar on How to Enable Content Indexing and Search in Oxygen Feedback

We have in plan to further improve and enhance the Oxygen Feedback search functionality with various features. One of these features is to have Facet-based search. This feature is planned to be implemented in our short to medium term roadmap for Oxygen Feedback search functionality.

Best regards,
Beniamin Savu
Oxygen WebHelp Team
http://www.oxygenxml.com

[Frank Ralf]

Hi Beniamin,

Many thanks for this thorough information!

Best regards,
Frank

[kgajda]

Yes, that's fantastic! Thank you!

[kgajda]

If I want to write a custom responsive webhelp plugin for 25.1 using our own search engine (not sure yet about which option for the results yet), but instead of where it looks like both of these solutions involve using a Publishing Template and a publishing desciptor file... how would I go about these same workflows but creating a plugin instead? I'm not familiar with the Publishing Template so I can't see how to sub it out and apply this to a plugin.
Thank you again for your help!
Kim

[Costin]

Hi Kim,

Unfortunately there is no official procedure to use a plugin for customizing the search engine in the WebHelp output.
Therefore, the only solutions would be the ones Beniamin already described, by using the methods linked in his reply just above in this thread.

Regards,
Costin