Django haystack, priority for some fields in search

When you say 'priority' you really mean 'sort', in the lingo of searching.

Django Haystack can sort by field matches, but it can sort by 'score', where it uses an algorithm to determine the sort order. You can influence the weighting of the score with 'Boost'ing it -- seehttp://django-haystack.readthedocs.org/en/latest/boost.html

Also, you should consider adding extra fields in your search_indexes.py that will be just for weighting. You don't need to have a one-to-one mapping between the Django model fields and the index. Something like

class MyModelIndex(QueuedSearchIndex):    desc1 = indexes.CharField()    desc2 = indexes.CharField()    otherWeightedField = indexes.CharField()    def prepare_otherWeightedField(self,obj)        # fill the extra field with extra stuff to help you sort, based on processing values from other fields

I use this approach.

from types import ListTypefrom haystack import indexesclass DocumentField(indexes.SearchField):    """An index field that combines and weights other fields because Haystack    does not provide for weighted searching. This field makes use of other    existing field classes for DRY."""    def __init__(self, *args, **kwargs):        self.fields = kwargs.pop("fields", None)        super(DocumentField, self).__init__(*args, **kwargs)        self.document = True        self.use_template = False    def prepare(self, obj):        values = []        for field_instance in self.fields.values():            v = field_instance.prepare(obj)            if not v:                continue            if not isinstance(v, ListType):                v = [v]            # Apply boost            v = v * int(field_instance.boost * 10)            values.extend(v)        return "\n".join(values)class MyModelIndex(indexes.SearchIndex, indexes.Indexable):    text = DocumentField(fields=dict(        desc1 = indexes.CharField(model_attr="desc1", boost=1.0),        desc2 = indexes.CharField(model_attr="desc2", boost=0.7)    ))    def get_model(self):        return MyModel