Book Image

Learning Search-driven Application Development with SharePoint 2013

By : Johnny Tordgeman
Book Image

Learning Search-driven Application Development with SharePoint 2013

By: Johnny Tordgeman

Overview of this book

SharePoint 2013 feels like a of fresh air, offering many new features and changes over older versions. Among these new features is a completely revamped search engine. "Learning Search-driven Application Development with SharePoint 2013" is a quick-start guide to creating search-driven applications using the new and exciting features that have revolutionized the SharePoint enterprise search experience. "Learning Search-driven Application Development with SharePoint 2013" is a fast-paced, practical, hands-on guide to the world of enterprise search in SharePoint 2013. With step-by-step tutorials and real-world examples, this book will give you a head start creating fresh and exciting search-driven applications using SharePoint 2013's new search engine. "Learning Search-driven Application Development with SharePoint 2013" is an accelerated way to create search-driven applications for SharePoint 2013. By covering the basics first and gradually covering all search related topics, this book will be your guide through the world of SharePoint's enterprise search. Furthermore, you will learn how to use the powerful feature of Query Rules to create smart conditions that help respond to user's search queries intelligently. We will also discuss how to style search results and make them stand out, how to index external content so it will be searchable using SharePoint's powerful search engine, and how to use the new client side search APIs, which will allow us to take advantage of search in Apps, the new development model for SharePoint 2013. After reading Learning Search-driven Application Development with SharePoint 2013, you will understand what it takes to create applications that use search as a content provider. Using applications that are based on real world examples and step-by-step tutorials, you'll get hands-on experience in developing search driven applications.
Table of Contents (12 chapters)

Building a BCS search connector


Before we begin writing our connector, we need something to connect to. First, extract the downloadable files for this chapter from the Packt Publishing website. You'll notice there is a file called VideoGamesDB.bak. This is a SQL database backup with video games console content that we will crawl to our SharePoint. Restore this database to a SQL server of your choice.

Now that we have content to crawl, let's move on and create the BCS connector.

Setting the operations

As this book is not a book about BCS, we've already created the basics for you. Open the VideoGamesConnector-Starter project from the downloadable content of the book in Visual Studio 2012. The BCS is partially done. What it's missing are a few key factors, as follows:

  • Implementation of the ReadList method

  • Implementation of the ReadItem method

  • Setting the BCS as crawlable

Implementing the ReadList method

Implementing the ReadList method is rather simple. All it does is connect to the database and grab...