ENH: Provide more control over elemental block indexing.

Provides a new configuration variable to exclude specific elemental block classes from being indexed in search.
Provides a new extension point for modifying exactly what gets indexed for each block.
Provides a new configuration variable to define the delimiter used
between blocks in the search index.

A single space delimiter is non-intrusive and will not require any changes within existing projects to avoid changes to the way content is indexed - but providing an option for configuring the delimiter can help avoid false-positive results in phrase queries.

docs/en/searching-blocks.md

@@ -29,4 +29,27 @@ You can disable it via YAML config in favour of your own index definition:
 SilverStripe\FullTextSearch\Search\FullTextSearch:
   indexes:
     - MyCustomIndex
+```
+
+You can define whether each block is included in your search index using the
+`search_indexable` configuration variable, which is `true` by default:
+
+```yml
+App\Models\MyCustomElementalBlock:
+  search_indexable: false
+```
+
+You can also customise the content that is indexed for your blocks. By default
+the block is rendered in full using the templating engine, and the resultant
+markup is included in the index. You can override the `getContentForSearchIndex`
+method on your elemental blocks to change that. This is useful, for example, if
+your templates include hardcoded text or references to other content you don't
+want to be indexed.
+
+If you want to use a specific delimiter between each block, that can be configured
+as well. The default is a space, but you might for example want to use an ellipses
+to make it clear in search results where one piece of content ends and another begins.
+```yml
+Page:
+  search_index_element_delimiter: ' ... '
 ```

src/Extensions/ElementalPageExtension.php

@@ -25,6 +25,17 @@ class ElementalPageExtension extends ElementalAreasExtension
         'ElementalArea',
     ];
 
+    /**
+     * The delimiter to separate distinct elements in indexed content.
+     *
+     * When using the getElementsForSearch() method to index all elements in a single field,
+     * a custom delimiter can be used help to avoid false positive results for phrase queries.
+     *
+     * @config
+     * @var string
+     */
+    private static $search_index_element_delimiter = ' ';
+
     /**
      * Returns the contents of each ElementalArea has_one's markup for use in Solr or Elastic search indexing
      *
@@ -43,8 +54,14 @@ public function getElementsForSearch()
                 /** @var ElementalArea $area */
                 $area = $this->owner->$key();
                 if ($area) {
-                    // Replace HTML tags with spaces
-                    $output[] = strip_tags(str_replace('<', ' <', $area->forTemplate()));
+                    foreach ($area->Elements() as $element) {
+                        if ($element->getSearchIndexable()) {
+                            $content = $element->getContentForSearchIndex();
+                            if ($content) {
+                                $output[] = $content;
+                            }
+                        }
+                    }
                 }
             }
         } finally {
@@ -53,7 +70,7 @@ public function getElementsForSearch()
             // CMS layout can break on the response. (SilverStripe 4.1.1)
             SSViewer::set_themes($oldThemes);
         }
-        return implode($output);
+        return implode($this->owner->config()->get('search_index_element_delimiter'), $output);
     }
 
     public function MetaTags(&$tags)

src/Models/BaseElement.php

@@ -174,6 +174,15 @@ class BaseElement extends DataObject implements CMSPreviewable
      */
     private static $displays_title_in_template = true;
 
+    /**
+     * Determines whether a block should be indexable in search.
+     *
+     * @config
+     * @var boolean
+     * @see ElementalPageExtension::getElementsForSearch()
+     */
+    private static $search_indexable = true;
+
     /**
      * Store used anchor names, this is to avoid title clashes
      * when calling 'getAnchor'
@@ -476,6 +485,33 @@ public function Top()
         return (Controller::has_curr()) ? Controller::curr() : null;
     }
 
+    /**
+     * Determines whether this elemental block is indexable in search.
+     *
+     * By default, this uses the configurable variable search_indexable, but
+     * this method can be overridden to provide more complex logic if required.
+     *
+     * @return boolean
+     */
+    public function getSearchIndexable(): bool
+    {
+        return (bool) $this->config()->get('search_indexable');
+    }
+
+    /**
+     * Provides content to be indexed in search.
+     *
+     * @return string
+     */
+    public function getContentForSearchIndex(): string
+    {
+        // Strips tags but be sure there's a space between words.
+        $content = trim(strip_tags(str_replace('<', ' <', $this->forTemplate())));
+        // Allow projects to update indexable content of third-party elements.
+        $this->extend('updateContentForSearchIndex', $content);
+        return $content;
+    }
+
     /**
      * Default way to render element in templates. Note that all blocks should
      * be rendered through their {@link ElementController} class as this

tests/BaseElementTest.php

@@ -7,6 +7,7 @@
 use DNADesign\Elemental\Models\BaseElement;
 use DNADesign\Elemental\Models\ElementalArea;
 use DNADesign\Elemental\Models\ElementContent;
+use DNADesign\Elemental\Tests\Src\TestContentForSearchIndexExtension;
 use DNADesign\Elemental\Tests\Src\TestElement;
 use DNADesign\Elemental\Tests\Src\TestPage;
 use Page;
@@ -236,4 +237,21 @@ public function testOnBeforeWriteNoParent()
 
         $this->assertEquals(0, (int) $element1->Sort);
     }
+
+    public function testGetContentForSearchIndex()
+    {
+        $element = $this->objFromFixture(ElementContent::class, 'content4');
+        // Content should have tags stripped with a space before what were the < characters
+        // One closing tag plus one opening tag means there should be two spaced between paragraphs
+        $this->assertEquals('One paragraph  And another one', $element->getContentForSearchIndex());
+    }
+
+    public function testUpdateContentForSearchIndex()
+    {
+        ElementContent::add_extension(TestContentForSearchIndexExtension::class);
+        $element = $this->objFromFixture(ElementContent::class, 'content4');
+        // Content should be updated by the extension
+        $this->assertEquals('This is the updated content.', $element->getContentForSearchIndex());
+        ElementContent::remove_extension(TestContentForSearchIndexExtension::class);
+    }
 }

tests/ElementalPageExtensionTest.php

@@ -114,4 +114,19 @@ public function testGetElementsForSearch()
         $this->assertStringNotContainsString('oneMore', $output);
         $this->assertStringNotContainsString('paragraphsAnd', $output);
     }
+
+    public function testSearchIndexElementDelimiter()
+    {
+        /** @var TestPage $page */
+        $page = $this->objFromFixture(TestPage::class, 'page_with_html_elements');
+
+        // Confirm default delimiter of a single space is applied between elements
+        $output = $page->getElementsForSearch();
+        $this->assertStringContainsString('another one More paragraphs', $output);
+
+        // Confirm configured delimiter is applied between elements
+        Config::modify()->set(TestPage::class, 'search_index_element_delimiter', ' ... ');
+        $output = $page->getElementsForSearch();
+        $this->assertStringContainsString('another one ... More paragraphs', $output);
+    }
 }

tests/ElementalPageExtensionTest.yml

@@ -25,7 +25,7 @@ DNADesign\Elemental\Models\ElementContent:
     ParentID: =>DNADesign\Elemental\Models\ElementalArea.area53
   content5:
     Title: More paragraph content
-    Sort: 1
+    Sort: 2
     HTML: '<p>More paragraphs</p><p>And yet more</p>'
     ParentID: =>DNADesign\Elemental\Models\ElementalArea.area53
 DNADesign\Elemental\Tests\Src\TestPage:

tests/Src/TestContentForSearchIndexExtension.php

@@ -0,0 +1,14 @@
+<?php
+
+namespace DNADesign\Elemental\Tests\Src;
+
+use SilverStripe\Core\Extension;
+use SilverStripe\Dev\TestOnly;
+
+class TestContentForSearchIndexExtension extends Extension implements TestOnly
+{
+    public function updateContentForSearchIndex(&$content)
+    {
+        $content = 'This is the updated content.';
+    }
+}