23 Sep
2003
23 Sep
'03
5:32 p.m.
On Tue 23 Sep 2003, Earle Martin <openguides(a)downlode.org> wrote:
Here's a log of a conversation Ivor and I had on
IRC the other week about
searching - meant to post it before, but forgot. Comments?
First of all, here's an update on where we are with the search, as of
OpenGuides 0.25 (just released).
The search box now searches for your terms not only in the titles and
bodies of the nodes, but also in the locales and categories. I feel
this is much more likely to provide the search results that a user
expects. We now require CGI::Wiki 0.49 (also just released) in order
that the locale and category searches can be made case-insensitive.
00:13 <ivorw> I'm thinking that we keep the
existing idea of priming a page
cache that is then searched
00:14 * hex nods
00:14 <ivorw> However, the cache can be primed with pages resulting from an
SQL query, in addition to those from a keyword inverted index search
You don't need to do an SQL query, as CGI::Wiki's ->list_nodes_by_metadata
method will do this for you.
00:28 <ivorw> How about: King's
Head&locale=acton&category=real ale
00:29 <ivorw> Or, how about: locale=west end&category=pubs
00:30 <hex> ah, you mean search syntax
00:30 <hex> I quite like Google style
00:30 <hex> King's Head locale:"West End" category:Pubs
I'm not always clear, reading this conversation, on whether the thing
being discussed at any one time is the thing that the user types into
the search box, or the query string that will appear in the URL, or
the API of OpenGuides::SuperSearch, or what.
00:31 <ivorw> Ah, but are spaces allowed in
metadata field names?
Metadata type and value can be whatever you wish.
00:39 <ivorw> Given my previous suggestion, I
would quite like to be able to
do regexp matches
00:40 <ivorw> e.g. king's head&post_code=~W3
Would anyone actually use this, practically speaking? Perhaps a fuzzy
match would be more useful. We do in fact already have a method for
fuzzy matching on titles; it's just that nobody has written a user
interface for it yet.
In general, I really don't want to have to remember yet another syntax
for writing search queries. How about we have an "advanced search"
page, with little boxes or even dropdowns so it's absolutely clear
which field will be searched for the things you type in.
Search for: _______________________
Locale(s): [ -- select -- ]
Category(ies): [ -- select -- ]
Kind of along the lines of the old Grub and Pub searches, which I hope
to find time to resurrect this week.
Kake