Search¶
Mayan EDMS provides a backend system that allow using different programs to
power the search function. The default backend
(mayan.apps.dynamic_search.backends.django.DjangoSearchBackend) uses the
database manager to perform searches.
Search syntax¶
Search syntax support will depend on the search backend being used. The
DjangoSearchBackend backend supports the following syntax.
Text entered in the search bar are split into search terms. The blank space character is used as the term delimiter.
By default, search terms are routed to an AND query. That means
that a search for:
Tag1 Tag2
will only return documents with both tags attached. To offer the
opposite choice we added an OR syntax. Searching for:
Tag1 OR Tag2
will return documents with either tag attached.
Literals terms are also supported.
Searching for:
blue car
will return documents with the words blue and car, even if they are
not together. That means getting documents with the phrases blue sky
and slow car. To search for exact terms enclose them in quotes:
"blue car"
This will return only documents with the exact phrase “blue car”.
Negative terms or exclusions is also support by adding a minus (-)
character to the term to be excluded.
The search terms:
Tag1 -Tag2
will return documents that have the Tag1 attached and that do not have
Tag2 attached.
Other backends¶
Besides the default Django search backend, a backend using the Whoosh search
engine is included. The name of this backend is
mayan.apps.dynamic_search.backends.whoosh.WhooshSearchBackend and can be
enabled by changing the value of the setting SEARCH_BACKEND. When changing
the search backend, it is also necessary to launch the “Reindex search backend”
action from the Tools menu to initialize the search engine index. Indexing the
search engine is only required once, afterwards the search engine will be
updated as documents are added or edited.
Refer to Whoosh’s documentation for more information about the search syntax it supports: https://whoosh.readthedocs.io/en/latest/querylang.html