The Unified Search Service indexes the metadata that is exposed by a SearchableEntity object. The Service also returns a SearchableEntity as the content of a search result. You must prepare your application data for the Service by encapsulating it in your SearchableEntity class.

1. Import the required classes and interfaces.

   import net.rim.device.api.unifiedsearch.SearchField;
   import net.rim.device.api.unifiedsearch.SearchFieldCriteria;
   import net.rim.device.api.unifiedsearch.SearchFieldCriteriaList;
   import net.rim.device.api.unifiedsearch.entity.SearchableEntity;
   import net.rim.device.api.unifiedsearch.searchables.Searchable;
   

2. Retrieve an array of SearchField objects from your EntityBasedSearchable.

   SearchField[] searchfields = mySearchable.defineSupportedSearchFields();

3. Create a SearchFieldCriteria object for each of your searchable properties. In the following code sample, the application data object myObject has a getProperty() method that returns a string for a given index. For example, if myObject described a book, then indicies 0, 1, and 2 of getProperty() could return the name, the publisher, and the number of pages in the book.

   int size = searchfields.length
   SearchFieldCriteria[] criteria = new SearchFieldCriteria[size];
   for (int i = size -1; i >= 0; --i) {
       criteria[i] = new SearchFieldCriteria(searchfields[i], new String[]{myObject.getProperty(i)});
   }

4. Create and populate a SearchFieldCriteriaList object to hold your search field criteria.

   SearchFieldCriteriaList _sfcl = new SearchFieldCriteriaList();
   for (int i = size -1; i >= 0; --i) {
       sfcl.addCriteria(criteria[i]);
   }

5. Implement getSearchCriteria() to return your SearchFieldCriteriaList.

   pubic SearchFieldCriteriaList getSearchCriteria() {
       return _sfcl;
   }

6. In getData(), return your application data object. To continue with the book example, this method would return an object that represents the book.

   public Object getData() {
       return myObject;
   }

7. In getTitle(), assign a title to this searchable entity. The title text appears in search results. To continue with the book example, myObject.getName() could return the name of a book.

   public String getTitle() {
       return myObject.getName();
   }

8. In getSummary() provide a summary of the data in this searchable entity. The summary text appears in search results. Continuing with the book example, myObject.getDescription() could return a description of the book.

   public String getSummary() {
       return myObject.getDescription();
   }

9. Implement getSearchable(). Retrieve the EntityBasedSearchable that your application creates to manage this object, and return it.

   public Searchable getSearchable() {
       return myPublisher.getSearchable();
   }
   

10. Define what options should appear on the context menu when a BlackBerry device user clicks on your entity in a list of search results. For more information, see "Specify what users can do with your data in search results".
11. If you want this SearchableEntity to display a different icon than your application icon, provide the icon in getIcon(). For more information, see "Customize the appearance of your data in search results".

You can specify what operations users can perform on using your SearchableEntity by implementing the getUiActions(Object, UiAction[]) method. For more information about UI actions, see Specifying what users can do with your data in search results.