Users of MetaSearch/Ransack, have you seen Searchlight? It’s a low-magic search gem that’s powerful and easy to understand. It helps you map form options to methods you write, and inside those methods, you can do whatever you need, from where(name: name) to complex SQL queries.

As of the 3.0 release, it’s also totally ORM-neutral, so whether you’re using ActiveRecord, Sequel, Mongoid, or something else, you can build searches with Searchlight. Check it out!