React-instantsearch: Allow using of the Places dataset

[Haroenv]

Do you want to request a feature or report a bug?

feature

Feature: What is your use case for such a feature?

You can easily use the Places index

Feature: What is your proposed API entry? The new option to add? What is the behavior?

adding a placesApiKey prop to <InstantSearch /> will allow you to use an <Index> with the places index.

In is.js places is handled as a separate widget, but then it has the dropdown etc. too, I think that's a different issue.

cc @raphi

[raphi]

👍

[mthuret]

@Haroenv @raphi I'm not sure we want to allow the browsing inside the Places dataset directly from RIS but rather propose a widget for RIS inside places.

Indeed it was an issue that already existed there: https://github.com/algolia/instantsearch.js/issues/1773. I didn't recreated it as it was not a high priority (=> we would rather have first a solid geo loc example using google). Of course this can be discuss :)

[oyeanuj]

@Haroenv @mthuret What is the best way to use Places with react-instantsearch? I already have a search experience set up with this library - can I reuse it in any way for Places?

[Haroenv]

@oyeanuj, what are you going to use the dataset for (to figure out what will be the best method for now)?

I think the best fallback might be to use the algoliasearch client library for the places things manually, since it uses different methods than the regular search methods

[Haroenv]

see also https://github.com/kontrollanten/algolia-places-react (community plugin)

[mthuret]

Hi @oyeanuj, eventually we want to integrate a places autocomplete widget directly on our InstantSearch library but for now, you'll need to follow the strategies @Haroenv mentioned :)

[oyeanuj]

@Haroenv @mthuret Thank you for the links. My use-case is for users to add their cities, so using an autocomplete just for that.

I think I might stick with react-geosuggest for now but it would be cool if eventually Places could be used with InstantSearch with all of the customizability and reuse that it offers!