Coveo Enterprise Search for Sitecore has built-in functionality that allows you to search content and display the results on your website, and as I have explained in a previous post, it is also possible to change the style and the way search query and search results are shown; but sometimes this customization is not enough and it is needed to have more control in the query and how the results are shown.
Open your Visual Studio project and add a reference to Coveo.CES.Web.Search and Coveo.CNL
We will use the following web form:
With this code:
<asp:TextBox ID="txtTitle" runat="server"></asp:TextBox>
<asp:Button ID="SearchButton" runat="server" Text="Search" onclick="SearchButton_Click" />
<br />
<br />
<asp:GridView ID="resultsGrid" runat="server" AutoGenerateColumns="False">
<Columns>
<asp:BoundField DataField="SitecoreId" DataFormatString="{{{0}}}" HeaderText="Sitecore Id" />
<asp:BoundField DataField="Title" HeaderText="Title" />
<asp:BoundField DataField="Author" HeaderText="Author" />
</Columns>
<EmptyDataTemplate>
The query returned no results.
</EmptyDataTemplate>
</asp:GridView>
<asp:Label ID="lblMessage" runat="server" Text="" EnableViewState="false"></asp:Label>
And this code behind:
private void PerformSearch()
{
//Create the search builder object
SearchBuilder searchBuilder = CreateSearchBuilder();
//We will need 10 results
const int numberResults = 10;
//Start with the first item, this is used when paging the results
const int firstResult = 0;
//Sort the results by a field, ascending
searchBuilder.SortBy = Coveo.CES.Web.Search.SortByEnum.FieldAscending;
//Sort by the custom field @MyAuthor
searchBuilder.SortByField = "@MyAuthor";
//Search by the Title (@systitle)
searchBuilder.AddAdvancedExpression(string.Format("@systitle={0}", this.txtTitle.Text));
//Create query wrapper
QueryWrapper query = QueryWrapperFactory.GetNewQueryWrapper(searchBuilder);
//Perform the search
ICESResult[] searchResults = query.GetResults(firstResult, numberResults);
//Check if there are results
if (searchResults != null && searchResults.Length > 0)
{
//For this example, we will create an Anonymous Type (just to
//avoid the creation of an object entity)
//and assign the list to the GridView
var resultList = from result in searchResults
select new
{
Title = result.Title,
SitecoreId = result.GetField("@SCItemID").ToString(),
Author = result.GetField("@MyAuthor").ToString()
};
this.resultsGrid.DataSource = resultList;
this.resultsGrid.DataBind();
this.lblMessage.Text = string.Format("Showing {0} of {1} results", resultList.Count(), query.TotalCount);
}
else
{
this.resultsGrid.DataSource = null;
this.resultsGrid.DataBind();
}
}
private static SearchBuilder CreateSearchBuilder()
{
try
{
var builder = new SearchBuilder();
ICESSearchProvider provider = SearchProviderFactory.CreateDefaultSearchProvider();
builder.Provider = provider;
return builder;
}
catch (Exception ex)
{
//Log the error
return null;
}
}
Don’t forget to add the using statements:
using Coveo.CES.Web.Search.Providers;
using Coveo.CES.Web.Search.Controls;
This is the result:
In the next part of this post, we will do the same query via web services.