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New Feature For Simple Search

by jeffa (Bishop)
on Dec 29, 2008 at 20:16 UTC ( [id://733107]=monkdiscuss: print w/replies, xml ) Need Help??

Hi. I would like to inquire on the possibility of adding a new feature to the simple search. Would it be possible to deliver a small, mostly harmless electrical shock to the client who tries to use it? Maybe even a suggestion to use Super Search along with the small, mostly harmless electrical shock. Something like "Hi. We are sorry we had to do that to you, but won't you consider using Super Search instead? We guarantee that you won't be shocked by it!"

Sorry, it's slow today. I hope everyone has a Happy New Year. <:)

jeffa

L-LL-L--L-LL-L--L-LL-L--
-R--R-RR-R--R-RR-R--R-RR
B--B--B--B--B--B--B--B--
H---H---H---H---H---H---
(the triplet paradiddle with high-hat)

Replies are listed 'Best First'.
Re: New Feature For Simple Search
by mikelieman (Friar) on Dec 29, 2008 at 20:26 UTC
    As I see it, the real challenge is getting the user to insert the probe.

      Gives new meaning to the term PEBKAC.

Re: New Feature For Simple Search
by ggvaidya (Pilgrim) on Dec 30, 2008 at 05:44 UTC

    Couldn't we rename the "Search" button to "Lookup", and "Super Search" to "Search"? The electric shock idea has merit, but it's going to be tricky to make that work properly cross-platform.

    Also: have a great 2009 everybody!

      Or perhaps rename Search to Simple Search; then Super Search can become Search. And perhaps Simple Search can fallback to a Google search (using site:perlmonks.org) if nothing's found, saving the user the next (obvious, to us anyway) step.

      And I'd reserve the electric shock for people who compose a node containing code without code tags, look at the preview of the result, ignore it and post anyway. Sigh.

      Alex / talexb / Toronto

      "Groklaw is the open-source mentality applied to legal research" ~ Linus Torvalds

        I was thinking of "Quick Search" but "Simple Search" might be better. Or "Overly Simple Search" (okay, that's a bit too much). The word "Super" might also be confusing because "Advanced" is the term commonly used elsewhere.

        With that said, why not just have the current "Search" call "Super Search" with the default settings? Then it would be a "Quick Super Search", which could be shortened to "Quick Search".

        Update: Fixed typos and reworded the "Advanced" sentence.

        Elda Taluta; Sarks Sark; Ark Arks

Re: New Feature For Simple Search
by creamygoodness (Curate) on Dec 30, 2008 at 13:29 UTC

    I continue to be amazed by the PerlMonks community's shameless willingness to tolerate our dated, clumsy search interface. The speed sucks, the ranking algorithm sucks, the temporal windowing sucks, the lack of typeahead suggestions sucks, the total experience sucks. It would have been acceptable in 1998, but this is 2008.

    IMO, monks who shunt noobs into SuperSearch ought to be the ones getting a jolt o' the juice.

    --
    Marvin Humphrey
      I usually just toss 'site:perlmonks.org' into a google search with my desired search terms, and I get a pretty comprehensive index.

        Of course. But that's not what the big "Search" box in the upper left hand corner of this page does.

        We present the noobs with a prominent but sucky site search and then berate them for their ignorance when they ask a question that's already been answered. Why? To make ourselves feel smarter?

        --
        Marvin Humphrey
Re: New Feature For Simple Search
by swampyankee (Parson) on Dec 30, 2008 at 00:52 UTC

    Electric shocks seem a bit drastic. They may be a bit tough to implement, too, as I believe not even the X library has "electrocute user" as one of its UI features. I believe that's restricted to the OS used on the Colossus.


    Information about American English usage here and here. Floating point issues? Please read this before posting. — emc

Re: New Feature For Simple Search
by ikegami (Patriarch) on Dec 30, 2008 at 06:06 UTC
Re: New Feature For Simple Search
by jdporter (Paladin) on Dec 31, 2008 at 03:05 UTC

    Well... We could simply make it stop working. Would that be enough of a shock? ;-)
    But seriously, why is using simple search so bad? It currently serves two distinct purposes, and one of them is critical to proper functioning of the site — namely, being able to link to a specific node by title. The other purpose — a simple by-title search — is clearly something that could be done, arguably better, by Super Search. Making simple search differentiate between these two cases more strongly is probably not a bad idea.

    FWIW, I submitted a "patch" to the relevant code, but it has not been accepted (yet). It automatically re-submits the search via Super Search whenever there would be multiple title matches (but no exact matches).

    Update: The patch has been applied. Simple Search now calls Super Search unless there is one (or more) exact title match. See Tidings.

    Between the mind which plans and the hands which build, there must be a mediator... and this mediator must be the heart.
      What needs to happen is a promotion to 'god' for a trusted, motivated person. Most of our gods, if not all, seem too busy to take care of some of the more pressing issues on this site. My 2 cents.
        a trusted, motivated person

        There's the rub. Motivated people are rare, and trusted people far rarer. The intersection of the two sets is vanishingly small.

        Even so, some gods are fairly active in site improvement initiatives. Corion deserves special recognition for the work he's done in trying to upgrade the database and the version of mod_perl used by PerlMonks. He's also been very good about applying my patches. Corion++.

        Between the mind which plans and the hands which build, there must be a mediator... and this mediator must be the heart.
Re: New Feature For Simple Search
by f00li5h (Chaplain) on Dec 30, 2008 at 06:27 UTC

    Sounds kinda like the wiki's [go] vs [search] buttons to me.

    @_=qw; ask f00li5h to appear and remain for a moment of pretend better than a lifetime;;s;;@_[map hex,split'',B204316D8C2A4516DE];;y/05/os/&print;

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