Ajax & searching in Activities, focusing on Activity Heartbeat feature

[imath]

In a comment to #5505, SGr33n reported a problem with the activity Heartbeat feature (load newest) & searching activities. I confirm this problem : if you add ?s=random it will load all newest activities without taking in account the search.

First, SGr33n, can you confirm that when you say: 'search page', we are talking about site.url/activity/?s=random. Or is it a plugin that is creating a specific search feature ?

Second, i'm hesitating about search. As the "Load More" feature doesn't support search neither, my first idea was to neutralize "load newest" if we have a ?s=random query string: see the ticketnumber.heartbeat-nosearch.patch. Using this patch, we get rid of the bug.

Then i thought it's a bit too bad, and i've built ticketnumber.heartbeat-search.patch which will load newest activities if they match the search_terms.

Finally, i thought it's a bit more too bad to support search in activity heartbeat and not in "load more", so i've build a 3rd patch : ticketnumber.loadmore-search.patch.

So i think we have 2 options :

• neutralize activity heartbeat if a search is performed > ticketnumber.heartbeat-nosearch.patch, or
• support search in activity heartbeat and load more features > ticketnumber.heartbeat-search.patch + ticketnumber.loadmore-search.patch

What do you think ?

[SGr33n]

First, SGr33n, can you confirm that when you say: 'search page', we are talking about site.url/activity/?s=random. Or is it a plugin that is creating a specific search feature ?

Confirmed

Second, i'm hesitating about search. As the "Load More" feature doesn't support search neither, my first idea was to neutralize "load newest" if we have a ?s=random query string: see the ticketnumber.heartbeat-nosearch.patch. Using this patch, we get rid of the bug.

Seems a good option, also in a semantic view, since that if you are searching somenthing, means that this something was already published... maybe this ticket will be updated when BuddyPress will support hashtags.

What do you think ?

In my opinion, you can disable it on the search page :)

[boonebgorges]

Second option seems better to me (support search for heartbeat and for Load More). Implementation seems straightforward, and it seems like it fixes an existing bug (that search terms are ignored on Load More)

[DJPaul]

I agree with Boone

[DJPaul]

In 5779.heartbeat-search.patch, I don't think esc_html is the right function to use to sanitise the user input.

[DJPaul]

Ticket update:

• 5779.heartbeat-search.patch​ needs updating (replace esc_html with an appropriate sanitisation function).
• 5779.loadmore-search.patch​ is ready for commit.

[imath]

I suggest 5779.02.patch which is merging 5779.heartbeat-search.patch​ and 5779.loadmore-search.patch​.
It uses addslashes instead of esc_html. Tested searching for "l'apostrophe" for instance and it seems to be ok on the two features.

At the end in BP_Activity_Activity::get(), search_terms are escaped using bp_esc_like()

[DJPaul]

Not tested, but I think this looks OK. Get it in soon, please. :)

[imath]

In 8817:

Add search support in Ajax "Load More" and "Load Newest" activity actions

If a search is performed in activities using the query string "?s=search_terms", make sure the search terms are sent in the ajax arguments of the "Load More" and the "Load Newest" actions.

Fixes #5779