Customize the Search Index

Under the hood Canopy uses FlexSearch to power the search index. FlexSearch is a full-text, memory efficient, search library that is fast and easy to use. It is also highly customizable. Canopy provides a number of ways to customize the search index.

Use Case

You'd like to use Canopy IIIF to create a digital exhibit featuring Arabic manuscripts. For example, the Arabic Manuscripts from West Africa provided by Northwestern University. The IIIF Manifest data contains both Arabic script and English text in its label and summary properties.

You'd like to customize search configuration in the following three ways:

• Support the "Arabic" character set in Search (in addition to default "Latin").
• Include text from Manifest summary values in search results.
• Include additional Manifest metadata in search results. In our example Manifests we include "Contributor" and "Alternate Title" as metadata items and would like to surface these in search results.

Implementation