Search

Table of contents

  1. Enable search in configuration
    1. Search granularity
    2. Search previews
    3. Search tokenizer
    4. Display URL in search results
    5. Display search button
    6. Focus search bar with a keyboard shortcut
  2. Hiding pages from search
  3. Generate search index when used as a gem
  4. Custom content for search index
    1. Example: adding custom usage and examples fields

Just the Docs uses lunr.js to add a client-side search interface powered by a JSON index that Jekyll generates. All search results are shown in an auto-complete style interface (there is no search results page). By default, all generated HTML pages are indexed using the following data points:

  • Page title
  • Page content
  • Page URL

Enable search in configuration

In your site’s _config.yml, enable search:

# Enable or disable the site search
# Supports true (default) or false
search_enabled: true

Search granularity

Pages are split into sections that can be searched individually. The sections are defined by the headings on the page. Each section is displayed in a separate search result.

# Split pages into sections that can be searched individually
# Supports 1 - 6, default: 2
search.heading_level: 2

Search previews

A search result can contain previews that show where the search words are found in the specific section.

# Maximum amount of previews per search result
# Default: 3
search.previews: 3

# Maximum amount of words to display before a matched word in the preview
# Default: 5
search.preview_words_before: 5

# Maximum amount of words to display after a matched word in the preview
# Default: 10
search.preview_words_after: 10

Search tokenizer

The default is for hyphens to separate tokens in search terms: gem-based is equivalent to gem based, matching either word. To allow search for hyphenated words:

# Set the search token separator
# Default: /[\s\-/]+/
# Example: enable support for hyphenated search words
search.tokenizer_separator: /[\s/]+/

Display URL in search results

# Display the relative url in search results
# Supports true (default) or false
search.rel_url: false

Display search button

The search button displays in the bottom right corner of the screen and triggers the search input when clicked.

# Enable or disable the search button that appears in the bottom right corner of every page
# Supports true or false (default)
search.button: true

Focus search bar with a keyboard shortcut

Just the Docs supports focusing the search bar input with a keyboard shortcut. After setting the search.focus_shortcut_key config item key, users who press Ctrl + search.focus_shortcut_key (or on macOS, Command + search.focus_shortcut_key) will focus the search bar.

Note that this feature is disabled by default. search.focus_shortcut_key should be a valid value from KeyboardEvent.key; this involves all ASCII alphanumeric values, as well as modifier keys.

For example,

search:
    focus_shortcut_key: 'k'

Will make Ctrl + K focus the search bar for Windows users (and Command + K on macOS).

Sometimes you might have a page that you don’t want to be indexed for the search nor to show up in search results, e.g., a 404 page. To exclude a page from search, add the search_exclude: true parameter to the page’s YAML front matter:

---
layout: default
title: Page not found
nav_exclude: true
search_exclude: true
---

Generate search index when used as a gem

If you use Just the Docs as a remote theme, you do not need the following steps.

If you use the theme as a gem, you must initialize the search by running this rake command that comes with just-the-docs:

$ bundle exec just-the-docs rake search:init

This command creates the assets/js/zzzz-search-data.json file that Jekyll uses to create your search index. Alternatively, you can create the file manually with this content.

Custom content for search index

New (v0.4.0)

Advanced

By default, the search feature indexes a page’s .content, .title, and some headers within the .content. Other data (e.g. front matter, files in _data and assets) is not indexed. Users can customize what is indexed.

Customizing search indices is an advanced feature that requires Javascript and Liquid knowledge.

  1. When Just the Docs is a local or gem theme, ensure assets/js/zzzz-search-data.json is up-to-date with Generate search index when used as a gem.
  2. Add a new file named _includes/lunr/custom-data.json. Insert custom Liquid code that reads your data (e.g. the page object at include.page) then generates custom Javascript fields that hold the custom data you want to index. Verify these fields in the generated assets/js/search-data.json.
  3. Add a new file named _includes/lunr/custom-index.js. Insert custom Javascript code that reads your custom Javascript fields and inserts them into the search index. You may want to inspect assets/js/just-the-docs.js to better understand the code.

Example: adding custom usage and examples fields

This example adds front matter usage and examples fields to the search index.

_includes/lunr/custom-data.json custom code reads the page usage and examples fields, normalizes the text, and writes the text to custom Javascript myusage and myexamples fields. Javascript fields are similar yet not the same as JSON. jsonify will probably work for most scenarios.

{%- capture newline %}
{% endcapture -%}
"myusage": {{ include.page.usage | markdownify | replace:newline,' ' | strip_html | normalize_whitespace | strip | jsonify }},
"myexamples": {{ include.page.examples | markdownify | replace:newline,' ' | strip_html | normalize_whitespace | strip | jsonify }},

_includes/lunr/custom-index.js custom code is inserted into the Javascript loop of assets/js/just-the-docs.js. All custom Javascript fields are accessed as fields of docs[i] such as docs[i].myusage. Finally, append your custom fields on to the already existing docs[i].content.

const content_to_merge = [docs[i].content, docs[i].myusage, docs[i].myexamples];
docs[i].content = content_to_merge.join(' ');