Terrific New Custom Search Engine Option: Swiftype

[⚡JFarrow⌁]

There is a new custom search engine I've been testing out called Swiftype.  I figured I'd share because it is entirely customizable and completely awesome.

Great configuration options

Easy to install and includes auto-complete..

You can even snap it in the place of your existing search box if you like..

I won't go into a large amount of detail on it here but if you get stumped and need some help figuring it out, drop me a comment.  I will write a more detailed walk through for configuring with Ning 2.o and 3.0 on my blog over the weekend. Enjoy!

[Kos]

Awesome JF!  Another Creator with a positive post.  Thank you for sharing it with us all.

[⚡JFarrow⌁]

We're on a role!!!

[Fire-Tech]

+1

[Thiago Santos de Moraes]

Great, I will wait for your blog post.

[Shelly Begarowicz]

Checkin this out for sure!  I've been wondering how to search with the tags I've been dutifully putting on my blog posts :)

[George H. Compton IV]

cool JF,,, Definitely a nice find thank you for sharing :-)

[Fire-Tech]

Sweetness. Def tweak this around. Thanks for sharing ;)

[Fire-Tech]

Yeah, this is pretty good. I haven't had a whole lot of time to play, but here's some rough things you guys may find handy (sorry, it's a little sloppy coding... @ 1 AM):

• Insert search into Ningbar
• Replace their ugly magnifying glass
• A few minor CSS tweaks
• Insert a GIF link in Ningbar to take members to an Advanced search page.

I'm using the overlay dropdown in the Ningbar and full page in a custom ning page.

Add to Custom Code

<!-- Insert Swiftype Search and Adv Search in Ning Bar -->
<script type="text/javascript">
x$(".ningbar-userLinks.linkbar").after('<form id="search-container"><input type="text" id="st-search-input" class="st-search-input" /></form><div style="position: absolute; top:.8em; right: 36em;" class="Adv-Search-Container"><a title="Advanced Search" href="YOUR URL" target="_blank"><img title="Advanced Search" alt="Advanced Search" src="https://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/964749609?profile=original"></a></div>');
</script>

A little CSS...

/* Swiftype Search Tweaks */
#search-container {float:right; margin: .4em; }
form input.st-search-input {
font-size: .95em;
height: 2em!important;
width: 18em!important;
color: #333;
border: 1px solid #fff;
background: #fcfcfc url(https://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/964749619?profil...) no-repeat 4px 2px!important;
}

Thanks again for sharing J

FT

[⚡JFarrow⌁]

nice work!  Here it is on my 2.0 site home page with search in opposite columns

and here it is on another page with search results happening in same column...

very robust!

[Fire-Tech]

Looks great man! I bitched about our 2.0 search for years. I'm thinking this is one of the best options I've seen around. Like you said; very robust.... and surprisingly fast!