Search

Content is stored as structured items, so it can’t be indexed by pointing a search engine at a column. Instead, the gem provides a plain-text projection of published content that you can feed to whatever search integration your application uses.

Plain text projection

Each item implements to_plain_text, returning a text representation of the item — or nil when the item is hidden. Versions join the visible tree into a single string, and containers delegate to their versions:

page.published_text # plain text of the published version, or nil
page.draft_text     # plain text of the draft version

Custom items should implement to_plain_text if they carry searchable content. Returning super includes the heading (when shown and visible); return nil if the item should not contribute to search:

def to_plain_text
  [super, description.to_plain_text].compact.join("\n") if visible?
end

Indexing

Index published_text so search reflects what visitors can see — draft changes stay out of the index until published. For example, with pg_search multisearch:

class Page < ApplicationRecord
  include Katalyst::Content::Container
  include PgSearch::Model

  multisearchable against:   %i[published_text],
                  if:        :published?,
                  update_if: :search_content_changed?

  def search_content_changed?
    saved_change_to_attribute?(:title) ||
      saved_change_to_attribute?(:published_version_id)
  end
end

Two details worth noting:

• published_text is computed from the version tree, not stored on the record, so the search library can’t detect when it changes. Publishing updates published_version_id, so use that as the re-index trigger (update_if above).
• if: :published? keeps unpublished records out of the index. Note that published? is true for containers in the draft state too — they have a live published version, and it’s that version’s text that is indexed.