Hi there,

I'm trying to figure out if it's possible to add the author to the smart search results - pretty much at a complete loss here. I've tried looking at the k2 finder plugin and the com_finder -> search_result.php, but since I'm relatively new to php, I'm not quite sure how the plugin interacts with the joomla component.

Is there any easy way to accomplish this?

Thanks in advance.

Well, apparently I figured it out.

Make an override for com_finder:

1) Locate the "default_result.php" in "\components\com_finder\views\search\tmpl" and copy that file to "\templates\[YOUR TEMPLATE]\html\com_finder\search"

2) Here you can add strings like $this->result->category or $this->result->author, etc

Basically, if you look in "/plugins/finder/k2/k2.php" and find this function: "protected function getListQuery($sql = null)" you can find pretty much anything you'd like to add, for example:

If I wanted to add the created date, I would look for this line (the bolded part):
$sql->select('a.published as state, a.catid, a.created AS start_date, a.created_by');

Then I could edit default_result.php and add something like this:
<div class="date_created">
<p>Created on <?php echo JHTML::_('date',$this->result->start_date, JText::_('K2_DATE_FORMAT_LC_2')); ?></p>
</div>

Hope that helps anyone that has having a similar issue.

Awesome!
Thanks for sharing this Tyler :)