Rails - Jan 2006 - Making sense of all the search options

Hi everyone,

I have an app that manages accounts.  There''s a search function that I
don''t like, but it works:

    @person_pages, @people = paginate :person, :per_page => 20,
      :conditions => [ "LOWER(username) LIKE ? OR LOWER(first_name)
LIKE ? OR LOWER(last_name) LIKE ? OR LOWER(preferred_name) LIKE ?",
                     "%" + session[:q] + "%",
                     "%" + session[:q] + "%",
                     "%" + session[:q] + "%",
                     "%" + session[:q] + "%" ], :order =>
''username ASC''

What I need is one search function that does this by default, but also
allows me to search each value independently.

I''d love to use a find_by_first_name() finder, but these are all
"like" searches, which isn''t supported in that fashion.  This
all ends
up looking pretty ugly in the code.

So, on to some gems and other add-ons.

 * Ferret looks awesome, but overkill for this purpose.
 * SearchGenerator might do it, but all I need is a finder to feed a
collection, not views and layouts.
 * ActiveSearch looks like the thing, but I''ve heard little about it,
so I''m not sure it''s still valid.

I''ll play with all of these to get a feel, but if anyone has any
thoughts on the best way to search through a table full of name and
title data, I''d love to hear them.

Thanks!

Sean