Can we assume that basic search template fields ALL exist on the advanced search template?

As the MAF API project gets underway, clarification is needed on how businesses use their basic and advanced search templates.

A search request needs to know what type of template is used (basic vs advanced) in order to know which rules to create the Novus query from.

So, is it the role of the consumer to specify in the request which search template the field belongs to, or, is it the job of the api to identify which template the search field is from?

If it is the API's job to determine which template is being used, can it be assumed that all basic search template fields exist on the advanced search template, and therefore only ever apply advanced rules?

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Ryan Morlok

Is this referring to search on the Cobalt platform? Is MAF API being built on Cobalt?

Gerry King

Whilst it would not be an unreasonable assumption there is nothing to stop a MAF partner using a generic input in a 'basic' search template and then dropping it in favour of a group of inputs in the 'advanced' search template.

I guess the first question to ask is does anyone currently do this. If nobody is then you could make a BIG RULE that would preclude anyone from doing any thing different.

That would shut the door on innovation IMHO.

Where the advanced template is a superset of the basic template there is no reason to maintain two sets of rules. The advanced rules could be specified for both search templates (some existing template rules logic might need minor changes)

Ferraz

No, MAF is the framework itself and the API is being build on MAF.

Ferraz

Gerry, I agree. Making this assumption does not allow business to leverage the use of advanced searching over a basic search.

I'm still interested in know if anyone is doing this currently though!

Emiliano Claria

Lately it's been a trend in most new MAF apps to use the search templates for rule processing letting the search template XML just as a dummy to set some options but with no fields defined. I guess that with that in mind the question could be phrased as whether advanced search template rules apply the same behaviour than the basic ones for just the basic fields.

Since there is a huge amount of search templates globally, I would say that the safest assumption is to say that it's not. As an example, some advanced search templates may contain date fields that are hidden and removed from the query if a default value is present. For those cases, processing the only the basic fields may break the final query due to that default value missing. Fixing cases like that so they work with that assumption could be a big issue.

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