Alaveteli Documentation

Alaveteli uses a search_documents table to store searchable data, which decouples the search index from the primary model tables. This allows for efficient searching using PostgreSQL's ts_vector capabilities.

There are two main ways to handle indexing:

1. object.reindex: Upserts content for a specific instance into the search_documents table. This should be called whenever a model's searchable content is modified.
2. Model.reindex_all: Overwrites all existing entries for a specific model in batches. This is useful for initial backfilling or full refreshes and can be run without service interruption.

Note: Reindexing large datasets (e.g., FoiAttachment) can take significant time (minutes to days).

# Reindex a single instance
PublicBody.find(123).reindex

# Reindex all instances of a model
PublicBody.reindex_all

To make a model searchable, add a searchable definition to it. This definition specifies which fields (or Ruby methods) should be included in the search index and assigns them weights (A being the highest) for ranking results.

• Use a leading dot (e.g., .name) to call a Ruby method.
• Use the column name directly (e.g., home_page) to access the PostgreSQL column, which is faster but less flexible.

You can define both a public index and an admin_index for content only visible to administrators.

searchable index: {
               ".name": "A",
               "home_page": "B",
             },
             admin_index: {
               # same logic as above
             }

To set up the development environment for the excel_analyzer gem, follow these steps:

1. Check out the repository.
2. Run the setup script to install necessary dependencies.
3. (Optional) Use the interactive console to experiment with the gem's functionality.

bin/setup
bin/console

Standard view templates must be renamed from the .rhtml extension to .html.erb. You can automate this in your theme's root directory using the following command:

Note: Mailer templates are an exception; they should be renamed to .text.erb because Alaveteli uses text-only emails.

for r in $(find lib/views -name '*.rhtml'); do echo git mv $r ${r%.rhtml}.html.erb; done

To add alaveteli_features to your Alaveteli application, add the gem to your Gemfile and run bundle, or install it directly via the gem command. After installation, run the generator to set up necessary migrations and an example initializer file.

# Add to Gemfile
gem 'alaveteli_features'

# Then run in terminal
$ bundle
$ rails g alaveteli_features:install

Alaveteli is tested against ruby-3.4.

If you are using a Ruby version manager like RVM or .rbenv, you can automatically switch to the recommended development version (currently 3.4.7) by creating a .ruby-version symlink pointing to .ruby-version.example within the project directory.

ln -s .ruby-version.example .ruby-version

If your theme patches mailer paths in lib/patch_mailer_paths.rb, update the method used to add view paths:

• Replace ActionMailer::Base.view_paths.unshift ... with ActionMailer::Base.prepend_view_path ...
• Replace ActionMailer::Base.view_paths << ... with ActionMailer::Base.append_view_path ...

# Old
ActionMailer::Base.view_paths.unshift File.join(File.dirname(__FILE__), "views")

# New
ActionMailer::Base.prepend_view_path File.join(File.dirname(__FILE__), "views")