Local search engine

[baltpeter]

(This also applies to the mobile app.)

We want to make it possible to use the apps without a network connection. One major thing missing for that is the company database. It shouldn't be too hard to bundle the companies into an archive that users can download and update every once in a while. But we still need to find a client-side replacement for Typesense.

Features we need (WIP):

• Typo tolerance
• Return full document in results
• Setting which fields to query by
• Sort by setting
• Highlighting
• Adapter for instantsearch

Nice-to-haves for feature parity with website:

• Token separators
• Filtering (not sure, maybe we even need that for the apps?), faceting

Additional nice-to-haves:

• Exporting the processed index (it would be nicer to distribute that instead of having each client index the data themselves)

Search engines I've considered (WIP):

• https://github.com/lucaong/minisearch
• https://github.com/nextapps-de/flexsearch
• https://github.com/itemsapi/itemsjs
• https://github.com/olivernn/lunr.js/
• https://github.com/weixsong/elasticlunr.js (unmaintained)

[baltpeter]

Random idea (not sure whether it's a good one): If we don't find anything suitable, wouldn't it be possible to compile Typesense to wasm? :D

[baltpeter]

Let's do a table:

	MiniSearch	FlexSearch	ItemsJS	Lunr.js	Elasticlunr.js
Typo tolerance	yes	no	no	annoying ("Fuzziness is applied by appending a tilde ( ~) and then a positive integer to a term.")
Return full document in results	yes	yes		only returns reference?
Setting which fields to query by	yes
Sort by setting	no?		yes
Highlighting	no (1, 2)	no	no	annoying (returns index)	no?
Adapter for instantsearch	no	no	third-party	no
Token separators	workaround
Filtering & faceting	workaround			filtering
Exporting the processed index		yes		yes

[baltpeter]

This doesn't look good. I haven't filled in everything since highlighting seems to be the deciding factor here. Lunr is the only one that seems to support that at all (and only in an annoying way).