Quickstart: Create a demo app in the Azure portal

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08/28/2024

In this Azure AI Search quickstart, you'll use the Azure portal's Create demo app wizard to generate a downloadable, "localhost"-style web app that runs in a browser. Depending on its configuration, the generated app is operational on first use, with a live read-only connection to an index on your search service. A default app can include a search bar, results area, sidebar filters, and typeahead support.

A demo app can help you visualize how an index will function in a client app, but it isn't intended for production scenarios. Production apps should include security, error handling, and hosting logic that the demo app doesn't provide.

Prerequisites

Before you begin, have the following prerequisites in place:

An Azure account with an active subscription. Create an account for free.
An Azure AI Search service. Create a service or find an existing service under your current subscription. You can use a free service for this quickstart.
Microsoft Edge (latest version) or Google Chrome.
A search index to use as the basis of your generated application.

This quickstart uses the built-in Real Estate sample data and index because it has thumbnail images (the wizard supports adding images to the results page). To create the index used in this exercise, run the Import data wizard, choosing the realestate-us-sample data source.

When the index is ready to use, move on to the next step.

Start the wizard

Sign in to the Azure portal with your Azure account.
Find your search service and on the Overview page, from the links on the middle of the page, select Indexes.
Choose realestate-us-sample-index from the list of existing indexes.
On the index page, at the top, select Create demo app to start the wizard.
On the first wizard page, select Enable Cross Origin Resource Sharing (CORS) to add CORS support to your index definition. This step is optional, but your local web app won't connect to the remote index without it.

Configure search results

The wizard provides a basic layout for rendered search results that includes space for a thumbnail image, a title, and description. Backing each of these elements is a field in your index that provides the data.

In Thumbnail, choose the thumbnail field in the realestate-us-sample index. This sample happens to include image thumbnails in the form of URL-addressed images stored in a field called thumbnail. If your index doesn't have images, leave this field blank.
In Title, choose a field that conveys the uniqueness of each document. In this sample, the listing ID is a reasonable selection.
In Description, choose a field that provides details that might help someone decide whether to click through to that particular document.

The search service supports faceted navigation, which is often rendered as a sidebar. Facets are based on filterable and facetable fields, as expressed in the index schema.

In Azure AI Search, faceted navigation is a cumulative filtering experience. Within a category, selecting multiple filters expands the results (for example, selecting Seattle and Bellevue within City). Across categories, selecting multiple filters narrows results.

Tip

You can view the full index schema in the portal. Look for the Index definition (JSON) link in each index's overview page. Fields that qualify for faceted navigation have "filterable: true" and "facetable: true" attributes.

In the wizard, select the Sidebar tab at the top of the page. You'll see a list of all fields that are attributed as filterable and facetable in the index.
Accept the current selection of faceted fields and continue to the next page.

Add typeahead

Typeahead functionality is available in the form of autocomplete and query suggestions. The wizard supports query suggestions. Based on keystroke inputs provided by the user, the search service returns a list of "completed" query strings that can be selected as the input.

Suggestions are enabled on specific field definitions. The wizard gives you options for configuring how much information is included in a suggestion.

The following screenshot shows options in the wizard, juxtaposed with a rendered page in the app. You can see how field selections are used, and how "Show Field Name" is used to include or exclude labeling within the suggestion.

Add suggestions

Suggestions refer to automated query prompts that are attached to the search box. Azure AI Search supports two: autocompletion of a partially entered search term, and suggestions for a dropdown list of potential matching documents based.

The wizard supports suggestions, and the fields that can provide suggested results are derived from a Suggesters construct in the index:

  "suggesters": [
    {
      "name": "sg",
      "searchMode": "analyzingInfixMatching",
      "sourceFields": [
        "number",
        "street",
        "city",
        "region",
        "postCode",
        "tags"
      ]
    }
  ]

In the wizard, select the Suggestions tab at the top of the page. You'll see a list of all fields that are designated in the index schema as suggestion providers.
Accept the current selection and continue to the next page.

Create, download and execute

Select Create demo app at the bottom of the page to generate the HTML file.
When prompted, select Download your app to download the file.
Open the file and select the Search button. This action executes a query, which can be an empty query (*) that returns an arbitrary result set. The page should look similar to the following screenshot. Enter a term and use filters to narrow results.

The underlying index is composed of fictitious, generated data that has been duplicated across documents, and descriptions sometimes don't match the image. You can expect a more cohesive experience when you create an app based on your own indexes.

Clean up resources

When you're working in your own subscription, it's a good idea at the end of a project to identify whether you still need the resources you created. Resources left running can cost you money. You can delete resources individually or delete the resource group to delete the entire set of resources.

You can find and manage resources in the portal, using the All resources or Resource groups link in the left-navigation pane.

Remember that a free service is limited to three indexes, indexers, and data sources. You can delete individual items in the portal to stay under the limit.

Next steps

The demo app is useful for prototyping because you can simulate an end-user experience without having to write JavaScript or front-end code, but as you get closer to proof-of-concept in your own project, review one of the end-to-end code samples that is closer facsimile of a real-word app:

Add search to web apps

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