I would like to allow visitors to a site to search for posts based on various attributes (categories, tags, custom fields).
I have tried using Solr, but this doesn’t appear to work.
I tried using the MySolrServer plugins for a local instance of Solr and a hosted instance, but the plugin doesn’t appear to work.
I also tried using Solr for WordPress, but the plugin wouldn’t enable.
I don’t want to use something like Taxonomy Drill-down.
Bearing those points in mind, how can I now try to implement true faceted search that will enable site visitors to search for posts based on attributes?
One of my favorite ways to do this is to use the Factious plugin. It is still fairly basic and only has a Sidebar widget by default. However, it has an extenable API(ish thing) that lets you write code to place it elsewhere.
The reasons why I like it are this:
Not sure if that is what you are looking for but none the less it should be a tiny bit easier than writing custom
WP_Queryand will be a good “get your feet wet” into WordPress’ Objects.I’ve been working on a plugin (http://wordpress.org/plugins/fantastic-elasticsearch/) that does both faceted search and provides better search capabilities. It doesn’t do everything and the kitchen sink, but it is a good starting point (uses ElasticSearch).