Releases 4.0¶

Release 4.0.0¶

Apache Solr for TYPO3 version 4.0 released

We're happy to announce the release of Apache Solr for TYPO3 (EXT:solr) version 4.0.0. With this release we now support TYPO3 CMS versions 7.6LTS together with Apache Solr version 4.10. At the same time we also started making the extension work with TYPO3 8.

New in this release¶

Support of TYPO3 7.6 LTS and TYPO3 8.0 (Dropping Support of 6.2 LTS)¶

To stay up-to-date with the TYPO3 core we decided to drop the support of 6.2 LTS and support 7.6 LTS only. We also made sure that EXT:solr works with TYPO3 8.0, this will be an ongoing effort until the LTS release of TYPO3 8. Until then you may experience occasional bugs as we try to keep up with the core's development.

Improve the Test Coverage for Fluid Integration and Refactoring¶

During the preparation for the upcoming fluid integration we used the chance to refactor the frontend part of the extension.

What we did here:

Move the logic from the Result/Search and FrequentSearches plugins to service classes in order to have the possibility to use them in different places (e.g. other controllers)
Introduce a SearchResultSet and SearchResultSetService to improve the object
model of search results

TypoScriptConfiguration Object and Streamlining of Configuration usage¶

TypoScript configuration is used in many places and accessing it with an object has some advantages:

Merging configuration with Flexforms and other sources is easier
We have a single point of access for configuration
We can move and remove isset()/is_array()/if..else logic to read and evaluate configuration into this object and make the code that is using it more readable
Since the implementation is a cross cutting concern for the whole extension, it can be used to improve the coverage of integration tests for all parts
By reading the annotations later it could be used to automatically generate
a TypoScript reference

During the preparation of the current release we implemented this TypoScriptConfiguration object and replaced all parts in the scope of EXT:solr

Migration:

For backwards compatibility the TypoScriptConfiguration object can be used with array access operators. If you want to read the configuration you can use the speaking method name for a configuration path or use the methods getValueByPath() or getObjectByPath().

PHP 7.0 ready¶

During the development we made sure that the code of EXT:solr works with PHP 7.0.

General Changes¶

Beside the major changes that have been mentioned before, there are a few minor changes that might be interesting:

ExcludeContentByClass¶

You can now use a new TypoScript setting plugin.tx_solr.index.queue.pages.excludeContentByClass.

e.g.

plugin.tx_solr.index.queue.pages.excludeContentByClass = removeme

Removal of q.op Parameter from solrconfig.xml¶

Since solrconfig.xml contained a default value for the mm (MinimumMatch) and q.op parameters and it does not make sense to have both at the same time for eDismax we removed the q.op parameter from the default configuration to avoid confusion.

Allow Indexing from Backend Module¶

To avoid switching from the backend module to scheduler and back, we added a button to do a simple indexing run with just 10 documents.

Resolving Overlays of SOLR_RELATION objects¶

The SOLR_RELATION object is now taking an overlay into account when relations are resolved. This allows you to resolve different relations from a translated entity for an original entity.

Auto-Correct in Default Template¶

The goal of the search is to keep the visitor on the site and provide the best results for them with the smallest possible interaction.

There was a feature in EXT:solr (searchUsingSpellCheckerSuggestion) that could be used to automatically trigger a search using the spellchecker's suggestions when a search with the original term did not retrieve any results. To simplify the integration we added the needed markup to the default templates so that you now just need to enable the feature and use it with the shipped default template.

How to use it?

plugin.tx_solr.search.spellchecking.searchUsingSpellCheckerSuggestion = 1

Use the shipped default templates or add the following snippet to your template (between  and :

<div class="tx-solr-search-suggestion_results">
    <!-- ###IF:###NO_RESULTS.HAS_SUGGESTION_RESULTS###|==|1### begin -->
    ###NO_RESULTS.SUGGESTION_RESULTS###
    <!-- ###IF:###NO_RESULTS.HAS_SUGGESTION_RESULTS###|==|1### end -->
</div>

Dynamic Field Type for Spellchecking¶

For spellchecking we had no dynamic field type before. Since 4.0.0 we now ship the dynamic field types *_textSpellS and *_textSpellM to allow you to easily define fields for spell checking.

Usage of Styles and Modals from TYPO3 7 LTS¶

To keep the styling of the backend up-to-date and use the new JavaScript modals we updated the backend module to use these new features.

Add Support of FastVectorHighlighter¶

Highlighting can be slow for large text documents - f.e. created when indexing pdf documents - and slow down search queries. To help prevent this issue we added support for Solr's [FastVectorHighlighter](https://cwiki.apache.org/confluence/display/solr/FastVector+Highlighter)

The FastVectorHighlighter will now be used by default if fragmentSize is set to at least 18 (this is required by the FastVectorHighlighter to work).

Use Caching Framework in Util::getConfigurationFromPageId¶

Configuration is retrieved and evaluated many times during indexing. Thus it made sense to use the TYPO3 caching framework to cache these expensive operations and improve their performance.

Use Xliff as Translation Format¶

Translation files have been migrated to the xliff format. The EXT:solr team would be happy if you contribute missing translations.

Resolve affected pages when "extendToSubpages" is set and "hidden" flag is changed¶

The Record Monitor is now able to evaluate the "hidden" flag on subpages when the extendToSubpages page property is set or unset.

Add signal after IndexQueueWorkerTask::indexItems¶

You can now register for a new signal "afterIndexItems".

Bugfixes¶

Beside the improvements mentioned before many smaller bugs have been fixed in this release as well.

Installation and Updating¶

This version of EXT:solr is based on the same Apache Solr Version (4.10) as the last version so an update for the Solr server itself is not needed.

However, a few modifications to the schema and Solr configuration where made. Please make sure to use the latest solrconfig.xml and schema versions.

You can always check TYPO3's system status report to see whether your setup meets the requirements and is up-to-date to be used with EXT:solr.

Deprecations¶

The following functions and methods have been marked as deprecated and will be removed in version 5.0

Util::getTypoScriptObject please use TypoScriptConfiguration::getObjectByPath() instead.
Util::isValidTypoScriptPath please use TypoScriptConfiguration::isValidPath() instead.
Util::getTypoScriptValue please use TypoScriptConfiguration::getValueByPath() instead.
IndexQueueQueue::getTableToIndexByIndexingConfigurationName please use TypoScriptConfiguration::getIndexQueueTableNameOrFallbackToConfigurationName instead.
IndexQueueQueue::getTableIndexingConfigurations please use TypoScriptConfiguration::getEnabledIndexQueueConfigurationNames instead.
PluginPluginBase::search / PluginBase::getSearch / PluginBase::setSearch please use $pi->getSearchResultSetService()->getSearch() instead.
PluginResultsResults::getAdditionalFilters please use $pi->getSearchResultSetService()->getAdditionalFilters() instead.
PluginResultsResults::getNumberOfResultsPerPage use $pi->getSearchResultSetService()->getNumberOfResultsPerPage() instead.
PluginResultsResults::getAdditionalFilters please use $pi->getSearchResultSetService()->getAdditionalFilters() instead.
TypoScriptConfiguration::offsetGet / offsetExists / offsetSet please use TypoScriptConfiguration::getObjectByPath / isValidPath / getValueByPath instead. These functions have only been implemented for backwards compatibility in will be removed in 5.0

Outlook¶

The next release (5.0) will focus on the needed refactorings to allow implementing fluid template rendering. At the same time we will ship the first version of our new extension "solrfluid" to our EAP partners.

Contributors¶

Like always this release would not have been possible without the help from our awesome community. These are the contributors for this release.

(patches, comments, bug reports, review, ... in alphabetical order)

Dmitry Dulepov
Florian Seirer
Frank Nägler
Frans Saris
Ingo Pfennigstorf
Ingo Renner
Marc Bastian Heinrichs
Markus Friedrich
Markus Kobligk
Mickael Vanclooster
Olivier Dobberkau
Sascha Egerer
Timo Schmidt

Thanks to everyone who helped in creating this release!

How to get involved¶

There are many ways to get involved with Apache Solr for TYPO3:

Submit bug reports, and feature requests on GitHub
Ask or help answering questions in our Slack channel
Provide patches through Pull Request or review and comment on existing Pull Requests
Go to www.typo3-solr.com or call dkd to sponsor the ongoing development of Apache Solr for TYPO3