Guides / Building Search UI

Nov. 08, 2023

Getting started with Angular InstantSearch

Angular InstantSearch isn’t compatible with Angular’s Ivy view engine. We’re investigating how best to support this. For more information and to vote for Algolia’s support of Angular 16 and beyond, see the GitHub issue Algolia Support for Angular InstantSearch

Welcome to Angular InstantSearch

Angular InstantSearch is an Angular library that lets you create an instant search results experience using Algolia’s search API.

To get started, you will build a search UI for an ecommerce website. You will learn how to:

Display and format the search bar and results
Use pre-built UI components (widgets) to filter results

Your goal is to create a fully working Angular InstantSearch app as fast as possible. This guide provides the data, installation instructions, all necessary code, and a step-by-step process. The guide doesn’t explain how everything is wired together yet, but you can dig into the library immediately after.

Complete source code

The complete source code for what you’ll build in a couple of minutes can be found on GitHub.

Build a simple UI

Bootstrap your app

To bootstrap a working InstantSearch app in seconds, use the command-line tool that was installed with Angular InstantSearch.

Open a terminal and paste these lines:

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git clone https://github.com/algolia/doc-code-samples/
cd doc-code-samples/angular-instantsearch/getting-started

This generates a folder on your machine that looks like this:

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getting-started/
├── node_modules/
├── src/
├── e2e/
├── package.json
├── tsconfig.json
├── tslint.json
├── angular.json
├── README.md
└── yarn.lock

Your app uses predefined credentials (application ID, API key and index name) that is provided as part of this guide.

Angular InstantSearch can be installed with an npm package in your already existing Angular app. This is covered in detail in the installation guide.

Initialization

If you aren’t using the repository for this demo, but are starting from an existing Angular project, you can install Angular InstantSearch like this:

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npm install algoliasearch angular-instantsearch

Now import NgAisModule into your App root module

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// app.module.ts
import { BrowserModule } from '@angular/platform-browser';
import { NgModule } from '@angular/core';
import { NgAisModule } from 'angular-instantsearch';

import { AppComponent } from './app.component';

@NgModule({
  declarations: [AppComponent],
  imports: [NgAisModule.forRoot(), BrowserModule],
  providers: [],
  bootstrap: [AppComponent]
})
export class AppModule { }

The next step is to create the configuration object that is provided to the config option.

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// app.component.ts
import { Component } from '@angular/core';
import algoliasearch from 'algoliasearch/lite';

const searchClient = algoliasearch(
  'B1G2GM9NG0',
  'aadef574be1f9252bb48d4ea09b5cfe5'
);

@Component({
  selector: 'app-root',
  templateUrl: './app.component.html',
  styleUrls: ['./app.component.css']
})
export class AppComponent {
  config = {
    indexName: 'demo_ecommerce',
    searchClient
  };
}

Enable allowSyntheticDefaultImports in your TypeScript compilerOptions:

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// tsconfig.json
 {
     "compilerOptions": {
+        "allowSyntheticDefaultImports": true
     }
 }

The last step is to update the file named polyfills.ts. Add the following code at the bottom of the file:

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(window as any).process = {
  env: { DEBUG: undefined },
};

Add the search UI code

Then, open the src/app/app.component.html component, replace the whole file with the following:

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<ais-instantsearch [config]="config">
  <ais-search-box></ais-search-box>
  <ais-hits>
    <ng-template let-hits="hits">
      <ol class="ais-Hits-list">
        <li *ngFor="let hit of hits" class="ais-Hits-item">
         {{hit.name}}
        </li>
      </ol>
    </ng-template>
  </ais-hits>
</ais-instantsearch>

Then in your src/style.css file, add:

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body { font-family: sans-serif; }
.ais-SearchBox { margin-bottom: 1em }

Run your project

Now that you have bootstrapped the project and added the search UI code, you can run it. Inside your terminal, type:

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npm install
npm start

Then open your browser and navigate to http://localhost:3000.

You’ll see this:

Dig in and understand the code

When you read the code of the file src/app/app.component.html, you will see three InstantSearch widgets:

ais-instantsearch is the root Angular InstantSearch component: all other widgets must be wrapped in an instantsearch widget
ais-search-box displays a search box for users to type queries into
ais-hits displays the results from Algolia, based on the query.

Additionally, you can see that widgets have a predefined style. Read more about this in the styling guide).

Add more widgets

To make your search UI more efficient and practical for your users, add some more widgets:

A way to filter results by brands
A way to clear active filters
A way to configure default search parameters
Pagination.

Open the file src/app/app.component.html and update its content with:

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<ais-instantsearch [config]="config">
  <div class="left-panel">
    <ais-clear-refinements />
    <h2>Brands</h2>
    <ais-refinement-list attribute="brand" searchable />
    <ais-configure [searchParameters]="{ hitsPerPage: 8 }"></ais-configure>
  </div>
  <div class="right-panel">
    <ais-search-box />
    <ais-hits>
      <ng-template let-hits="hits">
        <ol class="ais-Hits-list">
          <li *ngFor="let hit of hits" class="ais-Hits-item">
           {{hit.name}}
          </li>
        </ol>
      </ng-template>
    </ais-hits>
    <ais-pagination />
  </div>
</ais-instantsearch>

Here are the new widgets you added:

ais-clear-refinements displays a button to clear the current refinements
ais-refinement-list displays a list of brands to filter your search
ais-configure lets you pass search parameters, here to set the number of hits to display per page
ais-pagination implements paging logic

This example uses ais-configure to set the number of hitsPerPage to 8, but this widget can be used for any other search parameters such as filters, analytics, etc.

The ais-configure doesn’t render anything to the DOM.

To create the two column layout, replace the content of the src/style.css file:

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body { font-family: sans-serif }
.ais-Hits-list { margin-top: 0; margin-bottom: 1em }
.ais-SearchBox { margin-bottom: 1em }
.ais-Pagination { margin-top: 1em }
.left-panel { float: left; width: 250px }
.right-panel { margin-left: 260px }
.ais-InstantSearch { max-width: 960px; overflow: hidden; margin: 0 auto }
.ais-Hits-item { margin-bottom: 1em; width: calc(50% - 1rem) }

Go to your browser, and you’ll see this:

You just added a bunch of widgets to your first instant-search page.

Customize hits and add some final touches

The search UI is almost complete as a simple demo. The last step is to customize the rendering of the hits to display more information than just the name of the products.

Add more information

Open the file src/app.component.html and replace the content of ng-template tag with:

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<ol class="ais-Hits-list">
  <li *ngFor="let hit of hits" class="ais-Hits-item">
     <img src="{{hit.image}}" alt="{{hit.name}}" align="left" />
     <div class="hit-name">
       <ais-highlight attribute="name" [hit]="hit"></ais-highlight>
     </div>
     <div class="hit-description">
       <ais-highlight attribute="description" [hit]="hit"></ais-highlight>
     </div>
     <div class="hit-price">${{hit.price}}</div>
   </li>
</ol>

Add formatting

For the final touches, update the content of the src/style.css file with:

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body { font-family: sans-serif; }
.ais-SearchBox { margin-bottom: 1em }
.ais-Pagination { margin-top: 1em }
.left-panel { float: left; width: 250px }
.right-panel { margin-left: 260px }
.ais-InstantSearch { max-width: 960px; overflow: hidden; margin: 0 auto }
.ais-Hits-item { margin-bottom: 1em; width: calc(50% - 1rem) }
.ais-Hits-item img { margin-right: 1em }
.hit-name { margin-bottom: .5em }
.hit-description { color: #888; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: .5em }

Now open your browser, you’ll see this:

Summary

You just learned how to customize the rendering of the Hits widget. Learn more about customization in the customization guide.

Learn how to configure the dataset

Then you can quickly configure the index using the following code:

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// composer autoload
require __DIR__ . '/vendor/autoload.php';

// if you are not using composer
// require_once 'path/to/algoliasearch.php';

$client = \Algolia\AlgoliaSearch\SearchClient::create(
  'YourApplicationID',
  'YourWriteAPIKey'
);

$index = $client->initIndex('your_index_name');

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// Default version
import algoliasearch from 'algoliasearch';

// Search-only version
// import algoliasearch from 'algoliasearch/lite';

const client = algoliasearch('YourApplicationID', 'YourWriteAPIKey');
const index = client.initIndex('your_index_name');

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from algoliasearch.search_client import SearchClient

client = SearchClient.create('YourApplicationID', 'YourWriteAPIKey')
index = client.init_index('your_index_name')

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val client = ClientSearch(
    applicationID = ApplicationID("YourApplicationID"),
    apiKey = APIKey("YourWriteAPIKey")
)
val indexName = IndexName("your_index_name")

client.initIndex(indexName)

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package main

import "github.com/algolia/algoliasearch-client-go/v3/algolia/search"

func main() {
  client := search.NewClient("YourApplicationID", "YourWriteAPIKey")
  index := client.InitIndex("your_index_name")
}

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$index->setSettings(array(
  "searchableAttributes" => [
    "brand",
    "name",
    "categories",
    "unordered(description)"
  ],
  "customRanking" => [
    "desc(popularity)"
  ],
  "attributesForFaceting" => [
    "searchable(brand)",
    "type",
    "categories",
    "price"
  ]
));

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index.set_settings(
  searchableAttributes: [
    'brand',
    'name',
    'categories',
    'unordered(description)'
  ],
  customRanking: [
    'desc(popularity)'
  ],
  attributesForFaceting: [
    'searchable(brand)',
    'type',
    'categories',
    'price'
  ]
)

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index.setSettings({
   searchableAttributes: [
    'brand',
    'name',
    'categories',
    'unordered(description)'
  ],
  customRanking: [
    'desc(popularity)'
  ],
  attributesForFaceting: [
    'searchable(brand)',
    'type',
    'categories',
    'price'
  ]
}).then(() => {
  // done
});

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index.set_settings({
    'searchableAttributes': [
        'brand',
        'name',
        'categories',
        'unordered(description)'
    ],
    'customRanking': [
        'desc(popularity)'
    ],
    'attributesForFaceting': [
        'searchable(brand)',
        'type',
        'categories',
        'price'
    ]
})

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index.setSettings([
  "searchableAttributes": [
  "brand",
  "name",
  "categories",
  "unordered(description)"
  ],
  "customRanking": [
    "desc(popularity)"
  ],
  "attributesForFaceting": [
    "searchable(brand)",
    "type",
    "categories",
    "price"
  ]
])

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IndexSettings settings = new IndexSettings
{
    SearchableAttributes = new List<string> {"brand", "name", "categories", "description"},
    CustomRanking = new List<string> {"desc(popularity)"},
    UnretrievableAttributes = new List<string> {"searchable(brand)", "type", "categories", "price"}
};

index.SetSettings(settings);

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index.setSettings(
  new IndexSettings().setSearchableAttributes(Arrays.asList(
    "brand",
    "name",
    "categories",
    "unordered(description)"
  )).setCustomRanking(Arrays.asList(
    "desc(popularity)"
  )).setAttributesForFaceting(Arrays.asList(
    "searchable(brand)",
    "type",
    "categories",
    "price"
  ))
);

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res, err := index.SetSettings(search.Settings{
  SearchableAttributes: opt.SearchableAttributes(
    "brand",
    "name",
    "categories",
    "unordered(description)",
  ),
  CustomRanking: opt.CustomRanking(
    "desc(popularity)",
  ),
  AttributesForFaceting: opt.AttributesForFaceting(
    "searchable(brand)",
    "type",
    "categories",
    "price",
  ),
})

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val result: Future[Task] = client.execute {
    setSettings of "myIndex" `with` IndexSettings(
      searchableAttributes = Some(Seq(
        SearchableAttributes.attribute("brand"),
        SearchableAttributes.attribute("name"),
        SearchableAttributes.attribute("categories"),
        SearchableAttributes.unordered("description")
      )),
      customRanking = Some(Seq(
        CustomRanking.desc("popularity")
      )),
      attributesForFaceting = Some(Seq(
        "searchable(brand)",
        "type",
        "categories",
        "price"
      ))
    )
  }

What is Angular InstantSearch?

Installation

Did you find this page helpful?

Getting started with Angular InstantSearch

On this page

Welcome to Angular InstantSearch

Complete source code

Build a simple UI

Bootstrap your app

Initialization

Add the search UI code

Run your project

Dig in and understand the code

Add more widgets

Customize hits and add some final touches

Add more information

Add formatting

Summary

Learn how to configure the dataset

On this page