Can I search / index my own data source in Orchard via Lucene?

Question

I am currently working on a site so that users can search the user’s product catalog. I searched around and would like to use Orchard CMS to help me develop this site. Currently, I have gone through the Ron Petersons youtube series on the custom modules Orchard and Skywalker blog .

I feel that my goal is possible, but I am looking for some verification of whether my strategy will work within Orchard.

This is my current situation:

• I have a default Orchard configuration pointing to SQL DB (named Garden Product)

• I have a custom DAL that points to another SQL database (named products).

• Products consist of your typical information (product name, description, price, etc.).

• The custom DAL has a POCO model called Product (interact with the repository) with the Name, Description, Price properties.

Now, based on the information I read about creating Orchard modules, it seems like the method for creating a custom module with custom content is:

• Create a module using code tools (we will call it ProductModule)

• Create a custom piece of content (ProductPart)

• Create a custom content part record (ProductPartRecord) to act as a data model for the part.

• Create your own ContentPartHandler (ProductPartHandler) that handles the persistence of a piece of content.

• Create your own driver, which is the entry for preparing the forms for displaying the user interface.

• Potentially create a service that interacts with drivers?

Here everything starts to get in the way, and I'm not sure if this is possible or not. What I would like to do is to create a custom content type that is supported by my custom DAL, and not to store data through the ContentPartRecord inside the DB Product-Orchard, but still allow it to be indexed by the Lucene module to allow search in the product directory.

Is it possible to create a custom ContentType and / or ContentPart that is supported by another data source and still uses Lucene's search capabilities?

In high-level terms, I need a ContentType for content where ContentItems are actually stored in my secondary database and not in the Orchard database (and still want to be able to use Lucene search through Projections).

Answer 1

For those looking for a similar answer, the next solution is where I left off. There is no simple mechanism that I could find to interact with a single DAL and perform Lucene indexing.

• Create a gardener module
• Create a new piece of content / type through aMigration
• Using the Orchard Command infrastructure to import data from your secondary database
• Use the OnIndexing event in the Content Part handler so Lucene can index your data source.
• Create a search property (I called my ConcreateProperty) that populates the I service created in the module to interact with the secondary DAL in the OnLoaded event.

My last handler looked like this:

public class HomePartHandler : ContentHandler { public HomePartHandler(IRepository<HomePartRecord> repository, IHomeSearchMLSService homeSearchService) { Filters.Add(StorageFilter.For(repository)); OnLoaded<HomePart>((ctx, part) => { part.ConcreteProperty = homeSearchService.GetByMlsNumber(part.MlsId) ?? new PropertyDetail(); }); OnIndexing<HomePart>((context, homePart) => context.DocumentIndex .Add("home_StreetFullName", homePart.Record.StreetFullName).RemoveTags().Analyze().Store() .Add("home_City", homePart.Record.City).RemoveTags().Analyze().Store() .Add("home_State", homePart.Record.State).RemoveTags().Analyze().Store() .Add("home_Zip", homePart.Record.Zip).RemoveTags().Analyze().Store() .Add("home_Subdivision", homePart.Record.Subdivision).RemoveTags().Analyze().Store() .Add("home_Beds", homePart.Record.Beds).RemoveTags().Analyze().Store() .Add("home_Baths", homePart.Record.Baths).RemoveTags().Analyze().Store() .Add("home_SquareFoot", homePart.Record.SquareFoot).RemoveTags().Analyze().Store() .Add("home_PropertyType", homePart.Record.PropertyType).RemoveTags().Analyze().Store() .Add("home_ListPrice", homePart.Record.ListPrice).RemoveTags().Analyze().Store() .Add("home_MlsId", homePart.Record.MlsId).RemoveTags().Analyze().Store() .Add("home_Latitude", (double)homePart.Record.Latitude).RemoveTags().Analyze().Store() .Add("home_Longitude", (double)homePart.Record.Longitude).RemoveTags().Analyze().Store() ); } } 

This allows me to create a search service to search all of my data, and then connect it to the model through the Concrete property, which in any case works better in terms of performance.