Provides a dedicated Comments search tab at /search/comment. Each published comment is indexed individually so that search results link directly to the matched comment via the Backdrop comment permalink (/comment/[cid]), which redirects to the correct page of the comment thread and lands on the right anchor.

Backdrop's core search indexes comment text as part of the parent node's search entry. Through chat discussion, people in the Backdrop community identified details on how it works. This is something that has been present since Drupal 5/6/7 and inherited by Backdrop.

Pager-limited indexing. Core's comment_node_update_index() uses the same pager-limited function that renders comments where only the first page of comments is ever indexed per node - comments on page two and beyond are silently omitted from the search index entirely.

When a search term matches comment text, the result links to the top of the parent node. The user has no indication which comment matched or where on the node to find it, which may be frustrating on nodes with many comments, although the browser find on page may help.

Despite these two apparent limitations, there may also be a use case for this: where a search that matches the node content or comments on the first page will direct the person to the node itself and they will see the content followed by the comments providing context. This may be beneficial for Forums created with views and other applications.

This module provides the option to preserve the original behavior for backward compatibility and for any use case where it is desired by unchecking Exclude comments from Content search tab results. When the module is first enabled the default is unchecked.

The main purpose of this module is to provide a search for all comments and this is done in a separate tab on the Search form. The module maintains a separate index where each comment is its own entry. Search results link directly to the comment via Backdrop's comment permalink path (/comment/[cid]), that redirects to the correct page of the comment thread and jumps to the comment anchor. Users land where the match is, regardless of which page of comments it appears on.

The optional setting to Exclude comments from Content search tab results can be enabled to completely separate the content search from the comment search. When it is enabled comment text is removed from the node index entirely, so the Content tab returns only node matches while the Comments tab handles comment matches with accurate and useful result links.

• Core Comment module
• Core Search module

Install this module using the official Backdrop CMS instructions at https://backdropcms.org/guide/modules.

After enabling:

1. Go to Admin > Configuration > Search > Search settings (admin/config/search/settings) and ensure Comments appears in the active search modules list and is checked.
2. Run cron to build the comment index (bee cron or via Admin > Reports > Status report > Run cron manually).
3. The Comments tab will appear at /search/comment.

Indexing progress is shown on the search settings page for Content and other active search modules.

Each result shows:

• Title: the comment subject, linking to /comment/[cid]#comment-[cid]
• Snippet: an excerpt of the comment body with the search term highlighted
• Author: linked to the user profile for registered users; omitted for anonymous commenters
• Date: the comment's last-modified date
• In: the title of the parent node, linking to the node page

Results respect node and comment access controls - unpublished nodes and unpublished comments are excluded from both indexing and results.

An Exclude comments from Content search tab results checkbox is added to the existing Search items section on Admin > Configuration > Search > Search settings (admin/config/search/settings). When checked, comment text is not indexed as part of Content (node) search results. Comments remain fully searchable via the Comments tab. Changing this setting automatically triggers a re-index of all nodes on the next cron run so the Content search index reflects the change.

The Comments tab uses the same results-per-page setting as the Content tab, configured at Admin > Configuration > Search > Search settings. The Comments tab displays 10 results per page, matching Backdrop core's hardcoded default for search results. Core does not expose a results-per-page configuration key in search settings.

The index is updated on each cron run. Individual comments are also flagged for re-indexing automatically when they are created, updated, published, or unpublished. Deleted comments are removed from the index immediately.

To rebuild the entire index (e.g. after changing indexed content), go to Admin > Configuration > Search > Search settings and click Rebuild Search Index. This marks all comment index entries for re-indexing on the next cron run.

Other modules can add extra text to a comment's index entry by implementing hook_comment_search_index($comment, $node) and returning a string. This is useful for indexing additional fields attached to comments.

Additional documentation is located in the Wiki: https://github.com/backdrop-contrib/comment_search/wiki/Documentation.

Bugs and Feature requests should be reported in the Issue Queue: https://github.com/backdrop-contrib/comment_search/issues.

• izmeez.
• Seeking additional maintainers.

Created for Backdrop CMS by izmeez with AI assistance.

This project is GPL v2 software. See the LICENSE.txt file in this directory for complete text.