Thinking Sphinx display options

Question

Ok so i have a graphic model and I am using thinking sphinx as the search tool. It works well but i want to display different models on the search results page.. for example

i have this in my Graphic model

define_index do
 indexes :name, :description, :scale, 
 indexes sub_category.name, :as => :subcategory_name
 indexes sub_category.category.name, :as => :category_name
 indexes colors.name, :as => :color_name
end

This is fine and good but the problem is i want to display all the categories and subcategories for a found search and not just the graphics that are related. In my controller should i have three find like

@graphics = Graphic.search params[:search]
@categories = Categories.search params[:search]
@sub_categories = SubCategories.search params[:search]

this seems like overkill...is there a better way so in the view i can show each of them seperately

Answer 1

You'll need to have indexes defined in your Category and SubCategory models as well, and then you can search across all three at once:

@results = ThinkingSphinx.search params[:search], :page => params[:page]

In your view, you'll want some logic around each search result to render the correct HTML - perhaps you can have different partials for each class? I'd also recommend wrapping it into a helper. Here's a start:

<ul>
  <% @results.each do |result| %>
    <li><%= render :partial => partial_for_search_result(result),
              :locals => {:result => result} %></li>
  <% end %>
</ul>

And the helper:

def partial_for_search_result(result)
  case result
  when Graphic
    'graphics/search_result'
  when Category
    'categories/search_result'
  when SubCategory
    'sub_categories/search_result'
  else
    raise "Unknown search result/partial mapping for #{result.class}"
  end
end

Hopefully this gives you some ideas on how to approach the problem.