Search function to search files folders
Development and Programming
In expresionEngine, is there a way to search the Downloads folder (the folder where you can upload PDF’s) and return a list of assets that contain a keyword in the title? Or any other field associated with the asset?
What I mean is, I want to have a search function on the front end so users can search for assets (PDF’s) that I have in a file folder.
Not natively, you’d need a custom module or use a 3rd party search like https://www.algolia.com/
If I need file to be searchable I tend to add those sort of assets as channel entries, then add naming + keywords to the entry. That then exposes the data for search.
@rob Allen Is it then possible to create a search that will search that specific channel?
Yes you can use the native search with any channel - https://docs.expressionengine.com/latest/add-ons/search/index.html - this won’t search file names specifically but it can search any text fields in that channel, you’d use custom fields to provide say a file display name, description, and keywords you want to search one (i.e. words that may not be in the description).
This approach can work well if you have lot of documents that need indexing so they can be searched or related to other entries.