[wp-docs] dedicated Codex search function

Mika A Epstein ipstenu at ipstenu.org
Thu May 3 21:01:56 UTC 2012 

I think that's a good idea. It's what MediaWiki does on most of their sites :) I do it all the time.

Go to codex.wordpress.org/Multisite for example.



On May 3, 2012, at 3:22 PM, Nathaniel Taintor <goldenapplesdesign at gmail.com> wrote:

> Thanks for the input, Otto. I don't expect anything on the wp.org site to change overnight... its working well enough for the thousands of people who use it, don't mess with it on a whim.
> 
> The part of my idea that I thought could be acted on immediately, though, is creating redirect pages [1] on the Codex wiki to make Codex search more useful.
> 
> (To test the concept, I created a redirect from "register post type" to "Function_Reference/register_post_type": now searching for "register_post_type" on the Codex, ie http://codex.wordpress.org/?search=register_post_type, now brings you directly to the relevant function reference page.)
> 
> My question, not so much for the site admins as for other people on this list, is: is this something I can/should take on? From a quick browsing of the Special:AllPages codex entry, it looks like there are somewhere around a thousand pages in English with prefixes that would need to have redirect pages set up. Like I said, I don't see any possible downside, but if anyone has any reason for me not to do this, please let me know.
> 
> 
> Thanks,
> Than
> 
> 
> [1:http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Redirect]
> 
> 
> Nathaniel Taintor, Designer/Developer
> Golden Apples Design
> http://goldenapplesdesign.com
> 
> @GoldenApples | 717.434.3226
> goldenapplesdesign at gmail.com
> 
> 
> 
> On Wed, May 2, 2012 at 11:54 PM, Otto <otto at ottodestruct.com> wrote:
> At some point, I will fix this. However, right now, there's nothing
> that can be done about it. It's not a priority and screwing with the
> codex is a PITA that requires assistance from the systems guys.
> There's caching involved and loads of other annoyances.
> 
> If you want to search only the codex, use this page to do it:
> http://codex.wordpress.org/Special:Search
> 
> -Otto
> 
> 
> On Wed, May 2, 2012 at 5:11 PM, Lorelle on WordPress
> <lorelleonwordpress at gmail.com> wrote:
> > It isn't up to us and the docs team to like or dislike. We can support,
> > cheer on, and dream, but the action on such a task needs to come from the
> > site development team. Search is fairly locked down. Not sure who is
> > involved in that now. Jane or Ozh should know. Hopefully they will chime in
> > on this.
> >
> > Lorelle
> >
> >
> >
> > On Wed, May 2, 2012 at 11:53 AM, Nathaniel Taintor
> > <goldenapplesdesign at gmail.com> wrote:
> >>
> >> Yes, I do think that on a limited scale, a search box that only searched
> >> the Codex should be very doable and would be helpful to most people.
> >>
> >>
> >> Speaking for myself, I use a browser search bar that posts to
> >> codex.wordpress.org/?search=, and the results I get are very helpful to me.
> >> Being able to type in something like "Settings API" and get to the Codex
> >> page with no clicks saves me tons of time when I'm trying to look something
> >> up quickly. Definitely better than using the slow Ajax Google search when I
> >> know I just want to find the Codex article.
> >>
> >> The biggest problem there is setting up redirects from all the possible
> >> search terms to the proper Codex article; there would need to be a whole lot
> >> of redirect pages set up.
> >>
> >>
> >> The simplest ones (looks like there are 500-1000 of these) are the
> >> function names and so on:
> >>
> >>      {function name} to {prefix ie Function_Reference, Template_Tags,
> >> etc.}/{function name}
> >>
> >> Creating these could be easily automated, and I can volunteer to do it, if
> >> the docs team approves.
> >>
> >>
> >> Then there is a more editorial process of creating redirects from common
> >> search terms to the most appropriate page, ie. "Spam" to "Combating Comment
> >> Spam". This requires more knowledge about which articles are good and
> >> regularly updated, and probably some metrics of the most commonly searched
> >> terms. Some of this could be automated or taken on by someone like me, but
> >> some might need more of a committee to make decisions.
> >>
> >>
> >> I guess my question is: does anyone see objections as to why these
> >> redirect stubs shouldn't be created? I don't personally see any issues with
> >> it, but I haven't been working on the Codex very much yet, and I don't want
> >> to add things to it that someone with a broader vision of the project thinks
> >> is a bad idea.
> >>
> >> Thanks,
> >> Than
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >> Nathaniel Taintor, Designer/Developer
> >> Golden Apples Design
> >> http://goldenapplesdesign.com
> >>
> >> @GoldenApples | 717.434.3226
> >> goldenapplesdesign at gmail.com
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >> On Wed, May 2, 2012 at 10:24 AM, Lorelle on WordPress
> >> <lorelleonwordpress at gmail.com> wrote:
> >>>
> >>> This would be so awesome. Our MediaWiki is integrated into the entire
> >>> site, and at one time we had search options set that when you are in the
> >>> Codex you only search the Codex and when you are out of the Codex, your
> >>> search covers everything. The attempt has been made to open the search to
> >>> everything, and it is a mess with Google. A perfect search result would be
> >>> one that divided up the resulting content into Codex, Forum, etc. giving
> >>> more choice control to the user.
> >>>
> >>> That's the goal, but is it possible between the WordPress and MediaWiki
> >>> interfaces? It sounds like you think it is.
> >>>
> >>> The Docs team only has so much control over these things, so hopefully
> >>> someone with the ability to engage at the higher authority level on this
> >>> will jump in. You got my support. This has been a thorn for a long time.
> >>> Thanks for being willing to take it on.
> >>>
> >>> Lorelle
> >>>
> >>>
> >>>
> >>>
> >>> On Tue, May 1, 2012 at 12:09 PM, Nathaniel Taintor
> >>> <goldenapplesdesign at gmail.com> wrote:
> >>>>
> >>>> Hi all,
> >>>>
> >>>> The existing search functionality on wordpress.org has been bugging me,
> >>>> and apparently other people as well, for quite a while, and I would like to
> >>>> work on helping to fix that - especially in helping to provide a specific
> >>>> Codex search functionality.
> >>>>
> >>>> MediaWiki already has a decent search ability, which redirects to the
> >>>> found page if an exact match for the search term is found in a page title.
> >>>> Exposing this functionality would be an improvement over the current
> >>>> situation: eg. compare the results of
> >>>> "http://codex.wordpress.org/?search=posts" vs
> >>>> "http://wordpress.org/search/posts". In my opinion, just offering a "Codex
> >>>> search" box which used the MediaWiki search results, rather than the Google
> >>>> results that appear now, would be helpful for most users trying to navigate
> >>>> the Codex.
> >>>>
> >>>> The situation gets trickier, however, with the entries which are
> >>>> prefixed with Function_Reference/, Class_Reference/, etc. Look at the search
> >>>> results found, for example, for
> >>>> "http://codex.wordpress.org/?search=wp_remote_post". Not so pretty... And
> >>>> its kind of hard to programmatically determine, for example whether a search
> >>>> term should be prefixed with "Function Reference", "Function API", or
> >>>> whatever else.
> >>>>
> >>>> Overall, this means that the Codex is not as useful to developers as it
> >>>> could be. When I'm working, for example, I depend on DuckDuckGo's bang
> >>>> syntax search often to quickly look up manual pages for functions, and the
> >>>> experience looking up WordPress functions is definitely subpar as compared
> >>>> to other environments. When I'm searching for PHP functions, like "!php
> >>>> array_merge", the experience is a quick zero-click lookup. It would be nice
> >>>> to have that same experience in the WP Codex, like if searching "!wp
> >>>> register_post_type" would bring me directly to the relevant Codex page.
> >>>>
> >>>> What is the solution to this? Does it make more sense to create redirect
> >>>> pages for every function name indexed in the codex, ie creating a page
> >>>> called "register_post_type" with the content "#REDIRECT
> >>>> [[Function_Reference/register_
> >>>> post_type]]", or is there an extension that will make searching more
> >>>> user-friendly?
> >>>>
> >>>> I'd like to work on this, but I'm not sure what discussions and
> >>>> decisions have already happened. Can someone point me to a helpful way to
> >>>> contribute?
> >>>>
> >>>> Thanks in advance,
> >>>>
> >>>>
> >>>> Nathaniel Taintor, Designer/Developer
> >>>> Golden Apples Design
> >>>> http://goldenapplesdesign.com
> >>>>
> >>>> @GoldenApples | 717.434.3226
> >>>> goldenapplesdesign at gmail.com
> >>>>
> >>>> _______________________________________________
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> >>>>
> >>>
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