Autocomplete / suggest as you type backend for search queries on product name, brands and categories

[stephanegigandet]

We currently do not have an autocomplete feature for text search queries from the search box, where people can type product names, brands, categories. It would be great to provide one.

We could try to make one from scratch (e.g. just using leading ngrams of product names / brands / categories), or we could try to use autocomplete features from other databases. e.g. ElasticSearch. MongoDB has autocomplete support only in the paid version (Atlas).

e.g. https://medium.com/@mourjo_sen/a-detailed-comparison-between-autocompletion-strategies-in-elasticsearch-66cb9e9c62c4

[stephanegigandet]

One option would be using postgres text indexes. e.g. https://github.com/Grinnz/cpan-meta-browser/blob/master/lib/CPANMetaBrowser/Plugin/Backend/Pg.pm#L163

[stephanegigandet]

Another option: https://www.meilisearch.com/

[teolemon]

Elastic Search

[M123-dev]

https://www.elastic.co/

[alexgarel]

New https://github.com/openfoodfacts/openfoodfacts-search/ project should tackle this…

[M123-dev]

@alexgarel what is the current status of off-search, when do you think it's ready to be tested

[alexgarel]

@M123-dev I'm working on deploying it to stagging, see https://github.com/openfoodfacts/openfoodfacts-search/pull/17

[M123-dev]

Perfect, then we can directly try it out in smoothie using dev mode

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