[Xon] Search Improvements 2.17.6

Nitro · Jan 19, 2026

A collection of improvements to XF's Enhanced Search and some for XenForo's default MySQL search.

MySQL & Elastic Search features;

Allow * (or empty search string) to return results, for MySQL and XFES
range_query search DSL
- allows arbitrary range queries for numerical data
Allow users to select the default search order independent for the forum wide setting.
- Re-adds the global option for the default search type
Display search terms on the search results page
Add "Search only X" search criteria to individual handler pages, where X is thread/conversation/ticket/ect instead of searching thread/post etc.
- Makes general search a true subset of member search

Elastic Search Only features:

Add ability to push "can view threads/tickets by other" permission(s) into ElasticSearch query, reducing php-side culling of matching content.
This improves searching forums/tickets where the user lacks these permissions.

This is gated behind the option Push "View X by others" check into XFES', as it requires a full reindex. (Default disabled)

Supports the following add-ons:
- View Sticky Threads (free) add-on.
- Collaborative Threads (paid) add-on.
- NixFifty's Tickets (paid) add-on.
For best results, use ElasticSearch Essentials add-on, as it simplifies this permission constraint compared to stock XenForo
Restore default search order option
Per content type weighting
Adds Elastic Search information to the AdminCP home screen.
Adds a debug option to log the search DSL queries to error log for troubleshooting
Option to extend search syntax to permit;
- + signifies AND operation
- | signifies OR operation
- - negates a single token
- " wraps a number of tokens to signify a phrase for searching
- * at the end of a term signifies a prefix query
- ( and ) signify precedence
- ~N after a word signifies edit distance (fuzziness)
- ~N after a phrase signifies slop amount
- In order to search for any of these special characters, they will need to be escaped with \.
"Specialized index" support
- Specialized search index allows generating single-purpose elastic search indexes while re-using as much XF search infrastructure as possible.
  - Better tag autocomplete
  - Better username autocomplete
- These are examples of a "specialized index".
  > The username autocomplete it creates an index with just the user/email and replaces the admin quick search and front-end username autocomplete with an elasticsearch powered version.
  > The tag autocomplete replaces the front-end tag autocomplete with an elasticsearch powered version.
  
  In both cases this allows non-start-of-string matching, with typo tolerance.

Options:

New Permissions

Search Options

[Xon] Search Improvements 2.17.6

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