Upgrading to Kentico 8 - Smart search
Kentico 8 updates the search engine library used by the smart search to a newer version (Lucene.Net 3.0.3) and introduces changes in the search indexing API.
After upgrading an existing website to Kentico 8, you need to:
- Rebuild all search indexes.
- Rewrite the code of any custom indexes according to the modified API. See Creating custom smart search indexes for more information.
What’s new?
Kentico 8 adds the following features to the smart search:
- Predictive search
- Indexing of attachment file content directly within document indexes
- On-line form search indexes
- Search assistance features:
- Synonym search
- Word stemming
- Automatic typo-tolerant search (fuzzy searching)
Using the original Lucene version
If you wish to maintain your site’s search functionality without rebuilding all search indexes, you can switch back to the Lucene.Net library used in previous versions:
Note
- Some of the smart search features introduced in Kentico 8 are not available when running with the original Lucene version.
- Using the older Lucene version only removes the need to rebuild the default index types. You still need to rewrite and rebuild all custom indexes according to the new API.
Download SmartSearch.Lucene.v2.zip.
Extract the files in the zip archive.
Copy CMS.Search.Lucene.dll and Lucene.Net.dll into your web project’s bin folder.
Move the following dll files from the bin folder into a backup folder (outside of the project):
- CMS.Search.Lucene3.dll
- Lucenet.Net.v3.dll
- Lucene.Net.WordNet.SynExpand.dll
On web application projects, we recommend updating the references of the CMSApp project in Visual Studio, and rebuilding the project.
Once you perform the steps, the system works with the original Lucene.Net library (version 2.1.0). You can continue using search indexes created in previous versions without rebuilding. If you later decide to upgrade to the new Lucene.Net version:
- Remove CMS.Search.Lucene.dll and Lucene.Net.dll from your project’s bin folder.
- Return the dlls from the backup folder.
- Rebuild all search indexes in the system.