Whilst the default Drupal search is ample for most sites, we needed a search system that was faceted, wouldn’t bog down MySQL, and would work on a cluster. There was one clear winner – Apache SOLR.

From the same people that brought you the ubiquitous HTTP server, SOLR is a java search engine that is hugely sophisticated, yet through the joys of Drupal modules, is really easy to set up. Simply grab this module, and follow this guide.

A bit more work is required to really replace the Drupal search. The Suppress Search module completely hides the drupal search, and redirects all searches via SOLR. How about reformatting the SOLR search results though?

Using Drupal hooks, changing how the SOLR search results look is really easy. There are two hooks of interest: hook_apachesolr_process_results() and hook_apachesolr_search_result_alter().

hook_apachesolr_process_results() is called for each item in the search result. It is passed an object containing the raw search result – the node title, search score (relevancy) etc. The node title displayed can be edited to include the relevancy score:

function apachesolr_custom_results_apachesolr_search_result_alter(&$arg)
{
$show_score = variable_get("apachesolr_custom_results_showscore", 'hide');if($show_score == "show")
{
// append score to title
$arg->title .= " [".$arg->score."]";
}

return $arg;

}

hook_apachesolr_search_result_alter(), on the other hand, is only called once. At this point the raw search result from SOLR has been converted to node objects, so all node details are available to tweak. In the code snippet below I’m hiding or showing the author’s avatar next to each result:

function apachesolr_custom_results_apachesolr_process_results(&$arg)
{
// loop through each result, performing desired actions
for($i = 0, $l = count($arg); $i < $l; $i++)
{
$show_author = variable_get("apachesolr_custom_results_hideauthor", 'def');if($show_author == 'hide')
{
// remove user
$arg[$i]['user'] = "";
}
elseif($show_author == 'pic')
{
// show user avatar
$author = user_load($arg[$i]['node']->uid);

if ($author->picture)
{
$arg[$i][’user’] = theme(’user_picture’, $author);
}
else
{
$arg[$i][’user’] = ‘‘;
}

}
}

}

To simplify deployment, I’ve made a module enabling some simple customization of the results. Whilst not that useful in itself, it would make a good starting point for further development.

Module Download

British Council - English Online

Please visit the site at www.englishonline.org.cn

About the British Council

The British Council connect people with learning opportunities and creative ideas from the UK to build lasting relationships around the world.

Brightlemon were asked to design and build a community based website (English Online) to help promote the learning of English in China.

Visit the British Council’s English Online social networking website external link

The requirement

Design, creation and implementation of a complete educational social networking site to assist Chinese students in learning the English language.

The following list summarises some of the features of the site:

Personalised newsletters

Like many websites, users can sign up for a html newsletter from English Online to be delivered to their email inbox.

However what is unusual about English Online is that the actual content of the newsletter delivered is tailored to each user’s specific interests and learning level.

This is achieved by sophisticated taxonomy techniques which matches content with users based on their learning records and achievements, user role (learner, teacher, school) and other profile information.

Personalised content

One of the main requirements for the English Online site was that each user would be able to create their own ‘profile’ (similar to that which might be found on sites like myspace, facebook etc.) as a virtual toolbox for their study of the English language.

As they work through exercises, lessons and exams on the site, their progress is stored within this profile along with records of all other activities they have been involved in within the website (blogs, forum posts, pictures shared with other users etc.)

Users can choose from various pre-made templates to theme their profiles.

There are even different templates available for different user groups such as Learners, Teachers and Schools.

Personal blogs

Blogs provide commentary or news on a particular subject; some function as more personal online diaries. A typical blog combines text, images, and links to other blogs, web pages, and other media related to its topic. The ability for readers to leave comments in an interactive format is an important part of many blogs. Most blogs are part of a wider network of social media.

For the English Online website each user has their own indivual blog - presented within their user profile page.

Multiple languages

Obviously with the website primarily aimed at Chinese people wanting to learn English it was imperative that users of all skill levels would be able to access and understand the information and content presented.

For this purpose the site content needs to be available in both Chinese and English, but not only that as there are two main forms of written Chinese (traditional and simplified) and both of these are needed.

So brightlemon implemented a system where the user can instantly change the language of the site from any one of these three languages to another with one simple click of a mouse, no matter what page they are on.

Streaming videos

Forums

An Internet forum is a web application for holding discussions and posting user generated content. Internet forums are also commonly referred to as web forums, message boards, discussion boards, (electronic) discussion groups, discussion forums, bulletin boards or simply forums.

The forums on the English Online site provide a valuable discussion point for students, teachers and school administrators, where they can share advice and experiences with and ask questions of other English Online users.

Online Polls

Another point of interactivity is web based polls where users can vote on specific questions and share the automatically collated results.

Multiple Colours - Customisable Interfaces

To truly personalise the user experience people can also instantly change the colour scheme of the entire website by simply clicking a tab in the site’s ‘colour chooser’, which sits top left of every page.

Mobile site development

English Online has a dedicated theme that is designed for mobile phone users. This theme is set as the default when accessing the site via http://m.englishonline.org.cn/ - view mobile demo via Opera mobile. This simplifies the site display so it can easily be used via a phone’s smaller and more limited browser. Figure M1 shows how the latest members block is displayed via the Opera Mini browser, one of the most common mobile browsers.

Widget development

Widgets provide a way for users to actively participate in a website without the need of opening a web browser. Using Adobe Flex technology, widgets can be created that run on a variety of different platforms, giving users access to diverse rich media content.

For EnglishOnline.org.cn, a widget was created in order to provide a personalized user environment for all registered users. This environment allowed users to be able to quickly check the site for updates. Figure W1 shows the widget displaying the latest blog posts on the website.

Further than just being able to show updates to the website, the widget also enabled users to interact with their account.
Many of the web 2.0 features of the website were accessible through the widget. For example, the widget allowed users to check their friends list, read their messages (see Figure W2) and access their profile.

Widgets created with Adobe Flex technology can be seamlessly connected to the Drupal 6 framework, allowing for simple and fast viewing of data and media.

Learn English

Brightlemon has been commissioned to design a pilot website for British Council – Learn English.

The site will be divided into two main sections that will cater to their specific target audience. Learn English Adults (teens, adults, professionals, migrant workers and English exam takers) and Learn English (aimed primarily at children, parents and teachers of children). These two sites, in terms of design, offer two different proposition (see below)

The Learn English website will incorporate the existing sites (Learn English Central, Learn English Professionals and Learn English Kids) into a brand new, fresher and more user friendly design. At present these sites attract more than 900,000 visitors per month.

Learn English Adults

Design and layout

The design aims to highly navigable, modern, light use of graphics and not too much text

Ability to choose languages

Part of the requirement of the brief is that the website should be ‘multi language’. English, Chinese Simplified, Chinese Traditional, Arabic and Russian versions.

-

Help blocks

Profiles and accounts for the new site.

Events Calendar

Multiple navigation options – most popular, recently viewed or polled content.

Look at latest comments and blogs.

Learn English kids

Design and layout

Clear, simple, vibrant, child-friendly, youthful, strong use of colours, simple navigation, images, graphics for navigation, speech bubbles, not too much text.

Main graphic navigation carousel

Content Block styling

Learn English Flash Games

Latest competition module

Login modules

Opinion Polls

Recent comments

To start, create an account with the Drupal web site at www.drupal.org.

Click on “download” button from the top right tabbed menu, and select “Themes”.

You will see a page full of themes, which you can filter by type (version of Drupal that you are working on etc) using the drop-down at the very top of the page.

Choose a theme (or more than one) that are similar in layout to your design (same number of columns etc.) and download them.

The themes will be downloaded in the format: tar.gz these are compressed files which can be opened with most commonly available zip utilities (winzip etc).

To make your new themes available to your Drupal site they first need to be uploaded to the correct directory:
sites >> all >> themes.

To activate your new theme, login to the admin area of your Drupal site, navigate to site building >> themes and tick the ENABLE check box next to your new theme.

To make your new theme the site’s default (which is that one that you uploaded) tick the radio button next to the check box and click the save button at the bottom of the page.