Using more than one name for a query field - aliases

[Shawn Heisey]

 I find myself in need of the ability to access one field by more than 
one name, for application transition purposes.  Right now we have a 
field (ft_text, by far the largest part of the index) that is indexed 
but not stored.  This field and three others are copied into an 
additional field called catchall, also indexed but not stored, which is 
the default search field.

I would like to drop ft_text and make each index shard 3GB smaller, but 
make it so that any queries which use ft_text get automatically 
redirected to catchall.  Ultimately we will be replacing catchall with 
dismax and eliminating it.  After the switch to dismax is complete and 
catchall is gone, I want to switch back to using ft_text for specific 
searches generated by the application.

Is this currently possible?  I saw SOLR-1205, but this seems more 
concerned with query output, not query input.

Thanks,
Shawn