Django/Haystack - best option to have a listview with search capability - django

Question

I have an app with a Restaurant model. I'd like to understand what is the best way to put together a view that displays the list of restaurant objects, but also has a search form above that a user could enter parameters to filter the results displayed. If no parameters are entered, all the restaurants should be shown. I'm already using haystack and have a search form, but currently it is on a standalone search.html template. I also have an ListView on a separate template, and I guess I'm looking for an end result that combines these.
I did some reading on line and it's unclear what the best way to do it is:
using just listview from Django with some queryset filtering
combining haystack SearchView with django class based views?
this is my best bet so far - creating a customized version of SearchView from Haystack
ideally, ultimately the search capabilities would include things like allow autocompleting the user's inputs, and dynamically filter the results as the user types.
any thoughts on what the best way is to go about this and any examples out there?

Answer 1

There probably is out there some package that gives you everything automatically, displaying the queryset list and allowing simple adding of a search bar and so on (like the admin site). But I take it you are still a beginner to web development, so I'd strongly suggest you drop the listviews, drop haystack, drop everything, and do it all yourself.
See, they're not bad approaches or anything, but they're like shortcuts. And shortcuts are good only if they shorten the original way, which in your case isn't all that long.
To give you an example, here's a simple approach to displaying a list of items:
views.py
def restaraunt_list(request):
restaraunts = Restaraunt.objects.all().order_by('name')[:100] # Just for example purposes. You can order them how you'd like, and you probably want to add pagination instead of limiting the view number arbitrarily
context = {'restaraunts': restaraunts}
return render_to_response('index.html', context)
index.html:
<ul>
{% for rest in restaraunts %}
<li>{{ rest }}</li>
{% endfor %}
</ul>
That's it. Now it displays it in a list. Now to add a search filter all you need to do is this:
index.html (add this anywhere you want it)
<form>
<input type='text' name='q' id='q'></input>
<input type='submit' value='search!'></input>
</form>
When a user sends the data from 'q' it is sent through GET, and then on server side you add this:
def restaraunt_list(request):
restaraunts = Restaraunt.objects.all()
# filter results!
if request.method == 'GET':
q = request.GET['q']
if q != '':
restaraunts = restaraunts.filter(name__contains=q)
# ordering is the last thing you do
restaraunts = restaraunts.order_by('name')[:100]
context = {'restaraunts': restaraunts}
return render_to_response('index.html', context)
Now, this will work, but from what you wrote I understand you want the search to be live the moment a key is pressed. For that, you'd need to use AJAX (go learn how it works, I'm not gonna delve into it here). As for autocomplete, you should check out jQuery UI.
But, like I said, before jumping ahead and using all those stuff, I suggest you first learn the basics. Go through the django tutorial (if you haven't already), and use the amazingly detailed django-docs every step of the way. When some specific things won't work and you're stuck, come here to Stackoverflow and someone will surely help you. good luck!