Before you read any further about the new eZ Find 2.5 read the note and recommendations below. eZ Find 2.5 is a mid-release version of this acclaimed search software and some requirements and recommendations apply.

Recommendations and requirements: eZ Find 2.5 is released due to a requirement from some customers that the software is run on the latest version of Solr (unfetched Solr 3.1). Customers without this requirement can continue to use eZ Find 2.4. However, if you wish to get acquainted with the new eZ Find 2.5, do the following.

• Download a test version of eZ Publish 4.5
• Download a test version of eZ Find 2.5 and test it in that test environment
• Then, in due course, when ready to install the next main version of eZ Publish 4.6, you can go live with the eZ Find 2.6 (November 2011)

Internally the schema used by Solr 3.1 has changed, this means that to upgrade a full index update is required (in any case this step is required to upgrade from Solr 1.x to Solr 3.1 because the index files are not compatible) and this also means that some attribute names from the old schema might have a different name/format/properties now so every site specific code using directly Solr attributes has to be reviewed.

eZ Find is a search extension for eZ Publish which provides more functionality and better results than the default search in eZ Publish. It enables website visitors to quickly and easily locate information on eZ Publish sites (and on other sites if configured to do so) by providing relevant search results.

The main advantages over the default eZ Publish search mechanism are tunable relevancy ranking, sorting and keyword highlighting in the search results. The eZ Find search engine uses heuristics to analyze the structure of the information and is so able to determine the relevancy of information. This ensures that the most relevant search results are presented first in the result list.

Another improvement on the default eZ Publish search functionality is that eZ Find updates its search index concurrently in a copy. Search results are served from the main search index until the new search index is ready . After the index is complete, the copy of the current index is replaced with the newest version. In addition, the search engine remembers all caching structures from previous searches and updates these during indexing as well. Internal search index caches are created dynamically, therefore, the more the search engine is used, the faster it becomes.

eZ Find uses the open source enterprise search server Solr (unfetched 3.1 version), which runs on the Lucene Java search library. While the default search function in eZ Publish stores the search index in the database, Solr uses its own highly optimized file for storing its index.

eZ Find is also a certified extension that integrates smoothly with all eZ Publish business solutions. With eZ Publish Premium, eZ Find can be further customized to meet specific requirements and site structures. High scalability and performance ensures that the eZ Find search engine can support enterprise-level sites.

Once installed an eZ Find-Tab will be added to your Administration Interface for easy management (currently the elevate functionality)