Global search

Description

Easy and quick way to find any resource in the organisation.

Example:

What problem does this solve?

Users don’t need to search explores one by one to find what they want.

Requirements for v1

• search scope: in selected project
• searchable resources: spaces/folders, dashboards, saved charts, explores, group labels, fields ( dimensions/metrics )
• match by: name or description
• results order: spaces/folders > dashboards > saved charts > explores > fields ( keeping it simple for v1 )
• result info: icon, name, description. In the case of group labels and fields, show the table name as well.
• on click action: redirect to that resource
• hotkeys: ctrl + f and cmd + f should show the omnibar

Technical details

• only trigger search after 3 charts typed ( to avoid matching enormous amounts of results )
• have a bounce/debounce so we only search after the user stops typing
• ( if possible ) show a loading white is fetching new results but keep matching results available.
• add new endpoint for global search Post Array<SearchResult | SearchResultWithTableInheritance>

interface SearchResultBase {
    type:
        | 'space'
        | 'dashboard'
        | 'saved_chart'
        | 'explore'
        | 'group_label'
        | 'dimension'
        | 'metric';
    projectUuid: string;
    label: string;
    description: string;
}

interface SearchResult extends SearchResultBase {
    type: 'space' | 'dashboard' | 'saved_chart' | 'explore';
    resultUuid: string;
}

interface SearchResultWithTableInheritance extends SearchResultBase {
    type: 'group_label' | 'dimension' | 'metric';
    table: {
        uuid: string;
        label: string;
    }
}

[ZeRego]

For the three character limit, Slack does this really well for their productboard + canny integrations (I feel like this is just a Slack component):

@TuringLovesDeathMetal I like it ! let’s just hope Blueprint allows us to do that 😅

Can we specify exactly what’s the click action on each resource ? for example: explores ?

@rephus Would show the explore page for that explore/table with no selected fields.

fields: Explore page with fieldId selected (no chart will be displayed with just 1 metric/dimension)

Correct. It’s fine to not have a chart available.

How would the search actually work? Substring matching? Will there be typo tolerance like Algolia?

@12ian34 Good question. I’m not sure what we can do with SQL/Postgres but I wouldn’t invest much time to build typo tolerance for v1. Just a simple match would go a long way.

Can you search by user?

Right now I don’t see the advantage of searching for a user since we have a central place to see all the users in the org and project.

Is the navbar definitely the best place for it - perhaps on the homepage it could be more central, near the top in the main section (as well) kinda like Google?

From my experience the search is always in the navbar of most websites I use. Open to hear what other people think and especially @PriPatel 🧑‍🎨

Do we want to update the icon for “Browse” along with this work to avoid confusion since it is currently a magnifying glass?

Note that the gif provided is just a mockup/wireframe so it’s open to change. Yes, I think the icon and even the word ‘browse’ could be changed. We also talked about removing/changing it it the spaces milestone.

Could we navigate results by up/down arrow instantly, and use Return to select?

Yes, blueprint component already behaves like that 🙌

[owlas]

For the search backend @ZeRego we have the option to use full text search in postgres: https://www.postgresql.org/docs/current/textsearch-tables.html

Fastest query time would involve adding a new index to each table for searching.

A simpler version could just use LIKE clauses: https://www.postgresql.org/docs/current/functions-matching.html