Faceting and Multifaceting syntax in Solr 1.4

Introduction

So you've installed Solr 1.4 and you've managed to get some data indexed. Now you're ready to have some fun with faceting. Faceting is basically just filtering the results of a search without effecting the relevance score. Sites such as ebay use faceting to help narrow down the results of a generic search like TV, to give you options such as 32" wide-screen LCD etc.

 

It makes for a very pleasant user experience. It's one of the main reasons to use Solr and Solr makes this process very easy. There are actually 3 types of faceting. In this post I'm only going to talk about "field faceting". Once you've mastered "field faceting", the other 2 types ("query faceting" and "date faceting") are very easy and the basic Solr Wiki will be enough for you to get going.

Field Faceting

Now when you're indexing data in Solr, it's best to use the "text" field type, as this applies lots of filters which will help sort out plurals, remove white space etc. However when it comes to faceting, the values returned will be the values after the filters have been applied. Therefore it's best to create new versions of any fields you wish to facet.

Installing LocalSolr onto Solr 1.4 Server (Step by Step)

Introduction

I created this guide, so you don't have to go through the 2 days of hell I had to go through. Mainly trawling countless websites that all seemed to contradict them selves.. However this is how i managed to get LocalSolr working on my Solr Server. Enjoy

Prerequisites

Before you start using LocalSolr, you'll need to install solr. You can following my guide on installing Solr 1.4 on windows here

Steps

Installing Solr 1.4 on Windows XP (Step by Step)

Introduction

I've been spending a lot of time using Solr recently.. So here's my guide to installing it on windows XP

Steps

Please follow the following steps to get Solr 1.4 running on a windows box:

• Download Solr 1.4 from here
  
• Download the latest Java JDK