In february we’ve released several updates of our Apache Solr extensions. In this blog post, I want to summarize these releases and the highlights.
With EXT:solr 9 you can build a fast and flexible search for your TYPO3 website. You can index „pages“ and any other kind of TCA records with a flexible indexing configuration that is done with TypoScript.
Solarium PHP-API:
Since the old PHP-API solrphpclient is not maintained anymore and there are better alternatives available, we’ve switched to the Solarium PHP-API. This API is used by many PHP projects and used by many users (4.3 million downloads)
Apache Solr 7.6 support:
With EXT:solr 9 we’ve also shipped a newer Version of Apache Solr. Please check the Release Notes of Apache Solr 7.6 to get an overview of the new features.
TYPO3 9 LTS:
EXT:solr 9 can be installed with TYPO3 9 LTS. Many changes (e.g. the migration from pages_language_overlay to pages table) are reflected in EXT:solr 9 but not all features of TYPO3 9 are fully supported. Especially when you use the „site handling“ you should check if your setup is supported. Depending on the financing, we will provide a full site handling support later in 2019
Read and Write connections:
Up to now each site had one Solr connection for reading and writing. In most of the cases this was good enough when you want to index and search in the same core. Some setups require a more flexible approach:
With a separation of read and write connections, this is now possible. With these building blocks, you could e.g.
Besides these highlights, a lot of other small changes and bugfixes have been provided with EXT:solr 9.0.0. You can find a complete list of them in the release notes.
As a followup, we've also provided a first maintenance release 9.0.1.
If you want to extract the content and metadata of files in TYPO3 you can use EXT:tika to do that.
EXT:tika uses Apache Tika, as Tika Sever, Tika App or from Solr to retrieve this data from your documents.
EXT:tika 4 contains the following changes:
Beside that EXT:tika 4 contains a few small bugfixes. To get an overview of all changes please read the release notes.
If you want to index your files in TYPO3 from FAL, you can use our addon EXT:solrfal. In combination with EXT:tika, you are able to index the file contents into your Apache Solr search.
With EXT:solrfal 6 we've provided a compatibility release for EXT:solr 9.
EXT:solrfal 6 does not contain new features, but provides several changes that have been required for EXT:solr 9, TYPO3 9 and EXT:solrconsole 2.
EXT:solrfal is available for our EB partners on http://www.typo3-solr.com
EXT:solrfluidgrouping only contains compatibility changes for the Solarium PHP-API and small changes.
Please read the release notes for more information.
In 2018 we've provided a first version of the solrconsole addon. This extension provides several commands on the command line that allows you to automate recurring tasks.
Support of EXT:solrfal:
The following commands have been added:
New command solr:index:verify
This command allows you to compare the current state of the Apache Solr Server and the TYPO3 System. It allows you to identify:
Thanks to Jens Jacobsen and Ueberbit for the work on that feature!
New command solr:connection:flushall
This command allows you to flush all connections from the sys_registry table. This might be required if you want to remove all connections and re-initialize them with solr:connection:update then.
Thanks to Patrick Daxboeck and Bibus for sponsoring the work on that feature.
The addon EXT:solrdebugtools can be used to visually debug the scores of a document. With this addon you can see, which document has which impact on the score.
With version 1.1.0 we only provide small changes:
Solrmlt can now be used with TYPO3 9 LTS and uses the Solarium PHP-API as well to query the Apache Solr server.
More detailed information about EXT:solrmlt can be found on github.
EXT:solr and the addons are available now in the following version combination an can be installed in TYPO3 8 & 9:
The work on EXT:solr and our addons is only possible with the financial support of our partners.
Therefore we want to thank all our sponsors that already have signed-up for an EB 2019:
Especially i want to thank our premium partners in 2019:
Thanks also to Patrick Daxboeck from www.bibus.ch to involving us into the upgrade process to TYPO3 9 LTS. This helps us to improve EXT:solr and other components in a bigger live environment.
If you want to try EXT:solr & EXT:tika together with TYPO3 9.5.4, you can use our ddev setup, based on the introduction package.
In a few minutes you can setup your TYPO3 and Apache Solr development environment.
Are you excited about TYPO3 & Apache Solr and want to learn, how you can build a fast and powerful search on top of TYPO3?
We provide several appointments for a training, where you will learn, what Apache Solr is and how you can use it in your TYPO3 website.
Our next training dates are:
The work on EXT:solr and all the add-on's is financed with our partner program. With this partner program (EB) you:
If you want to support us by becoming a partner please click here or call +49 (0)69 - 2475218 0
