Open-Sourcing the Coveo JavaScript Search Framework
In July 2016, the Coveo Search UI, also known as the Coveo JavaScript Search Framework, became open-source. This means that, from now on, anyone will be able to go on GitHub, take the Coveo Search UI, and modify the code itself to adapt it to their own needs.
Sitecore PowerShell Extension with Coveo
The excellent Sitecore PowerShell Extension allows you to return items from your index and display its properties in a friendly manner, all of this at a much faster speed than using the Content Search API. This is, of course, just one function of that rich extension.
Software Quality
When I try to code, I always ask myself what’s right and what’s wrong about software quality. Sometimes, those questions aren’t easy to answer, but as software developers, we must answer them. Over my short time (4 years) as a developer, I developed certain universal and basic interrogations. I found some by reading online and others by questioning myself. When answered correctly, they can give you a hint at the quality of a software.
Using request objects with Feign
We recently decided to move our functional tests stack from python to Java, mainly to make coding them easier (our project’s backend is coded in Java) and thus increase the number of tests getting written. We needed a few things to make this possible and one of them was a complete and comprehensive Java client for the Usage Analytics API. Since a lot of the Java API clients we use internaly are built with Netflix’s Feign, I decided to give it a go.
Of reading too many resumes
We have many interns right now at Coveo. For the summer, this process starts in February when we get over one hundred applications through multiple universities. All those applications had one thing in common, The Resume.
Over the years, I’ve read hundreds of them and have therefore accumulated a good list of what you should and shouldn’t do.
How to prevent frequent JavaScript mistakes
When writing JavaScript, I spend a lot of time fixing simple mistakes. Unlike compiled languages you are more likely to make mistakes. It is easy for syntax errors to sneak into your code without realizing it until you actually try and run your code.
How many times have I got an undefined variable because I refactored some code
and forgot to rename that variable.
Even though it has been more than 5 years since I wrote my first Hello World.
The feeling remains the same – Why did I make this mistake again ?
Adding support for 'require' in Nashorn
Some parts of Coveo’s query pipeline are extensible using JavaScript. We initially used DynJS, but since it’s now unmaintained, we had to switch to a new JS engine, namely Nashorn that comes out-of-the-box starting with Java 8. Nashorn works pretty well, but it’s missing built-in support for the require function that is used with CommonJS modules.
Isomorphic TypeScript, fetch, promises, ava and coverage
Writing an API client in JavaScript is a lot of work, you have to write one for Node.js and one for the browser. I found out a way to have both on the same codebase with the same API, all that with only changes to the build scripts. It’s called isomorphic code, and doing it with modern TypeScript isn’t easy, but it’s achievable.
Indexing Only Relevant Parts of Sitecore Rendered Content
For website search, relevancy of the search results should be a priority. When indexing a Sitecore item with Coveo for Sitecore, you want as much information as possible to be indexed. That’s why you probably use the HtmlContentInBodyWithRequestsProcessor to index the Sitecore rendered HTML of the item. However, you don’t want to index global sections of the HTML like the header, footer, navigation, ads and sidebars.
A few solutions were available to do so. This post details a simple solution that involves only a Sitecore processor and minor edits to layouts, sublayouts or views.
Microservices and exception handling in Java with Feign and reflection
Update 2016/07/08: The project is now available on GitHub! I plan on making it more generic before publishing it to Maven, I’ll update this post soon with the new details.
Exception handling across microservices can be tedious, let’s see how the Java reflection API can help us ease the pain!