Search Facade
Overview
Whilst content browsing is still the most common way to discover content, search is a very useful tool when trying to find specific content by one of its features, such as title, actor or description. A benefit of this functionality is that other content can also be discovered.
OpenTV Video Platform facilitates content search either via the Search Facade (where multiple content sources can be searched simultaneously) or via direct MDS search. It is recommended that Search Facade be used as the default configuration, as this encapsulates the underlying MDS search, and it also ensures that additional search engine use can be catered for should this be required in the future.
A client application can also search using search rails. This returns a rails template populated with the search results (which, in turn, come from Search Facade).
This means that the app can display search results in the same way that it displays any other rails template, which means that you can use the same code and do not need different, specific code for displaying search results.
By default, Search Facade saves the searches that have been performed per user profile. A client application can retrieve this search history and make it available to the user.
The Search Facade has a generic interface, removing the need for knowledge of bespoke search engine query calls. Exposing the search functionality in this way allows for a greater degree of control over the queries that can be performed, which in turn then allows for better performance tuning and more predictable scaling.
Each supported search solution is facilitated by its own Search Facade adapter. The addition of future search solutions will depend on the deployment of similar adapters.