CODEWITHSUNDEEP
algolia
cre8ive
cre8ive

Reputation: 33

setting initial facet/refinement values when using instantsearch.js

I'm using instantsearch.js and a combination of widgets to display my search results (pretty much modeled exactly after the demos).

I need to set some initial values for facets so certain items are filtered on by default. How do I do this? I know the AlgoliaSearchHelper (helper) object has a method toggleRefinement that should allow me to do this but I can't seem to access this helper prior to calling search.start() which does the initial query.

Any advice or insight on how to set some default refinements would be appreciated. Thanks.

Update: This isn't a duplicate - my issue seems to have been with the instantsearch.widget.toggle. It looks like this widget sets default values behind the scenes before the initial search. I've adjusted my code to not use this widget and to just set the searchParameters.tagFilters property instead. It was the toggle widget throwing things off for me as I couldn't figure out how to override its default filtering.

Upvotes: 2

Views: 4845

Answers (4)

Jeremy Lynch
Jeremy Lynch

Reputation: 7210

This is what worked for us:

search.addWidgets([{
  init: function(options) {
    options.helper.toggleRefinement('attribute', 'value');
  }
}]);

Upvotes: 1

redox
redox

Reputation: 2319

The easiest way to add initial filters to your instantsearch.js instance is to use an extra custom widget:

  var search = instantsearch({
    appId: 'YourApplicationID',
    apiKey: 'YourSearchOnlyAPIKey',
    indexName: 'YourIndexName'
  });

  search.addWidget(
    instantsearch.widgets.searchBox({
      container: '#search-box',
      placeholder: 'Search for FIXME...'
    })
  );

  search.addWidget(
    instantsearch.widgets.hits({
      container: '#hits-container',
      templates: {
        item: 'Hit {{objectID}}: FIXME'
      }
    })
  );

  // setup initial filters
  search.addWidget({
    init: function(options) {
       // use options.helper (https://github.com/algolia/algoliasearch-helper-js) to initialize the search with custom filters & parameters
       options.helper.addFacetRefinement('MyFacet', 'my value');
    }
  });

  search.start();

Upvotes: 2

Jerska
Jerska

Reputation: 12032

You are indeed right, under the hood the toggle widget uses the off value if provided:

if (userValues.off === undefined) {
  return;
}
// Add filtering on the 'off' value if set
let isRefined = state.isFacetRefined(attributeName, userValues.on);
if (!isRefined) {
  helper.addFacetRefinement(attributeName, userValues.off);
}

To avoid this incomprehension from other users, there is now a PR on instantsearch.js with the following update:

Note that if you provide an "off" option, it will be refined at initialization.

Upvotes: 0

cre8ive
cre8ive

Reputation: 33

My issue seems to have been with the instantsearch.widget.toggle. It looks like this widget sets default values behind the scenes before the initial search. I've adjusted my code to not use this widget and to just set the searchParameters.tagFilters property instead. It was the toggle widget throwing things off for me as I couldn't figure out how to override its default filtering.

Upvotes: 0

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