Thanks for the input, Otto. I don't expect anything on the <a href="http://wp.org" target="_blank">wp.org</a> site to change overnight... its working well enough for the thousands of people who use it, don't mess with it on a whim.<br>
<br>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.<br><br>(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 <a href="http://codex.wordpress.org/?search=register_post_type">http://codex.wordpress.org/?search=register_post_type</a>, now brings you directly to the relevant function reference page.)<br>
<br>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.<br>
<br><br>Thanks,<br>Than<br><br><br>[1:<a href="http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Redirect">http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Redirect</a>]<br><br><br clear="all">Nathaniel Taintor, Designer/Developer<br>
<b>Golden Apples Design</b><br><a href="http://goldenapplesdesign.com" target="_blank">http://goldenapplesdesign.com</a><br><br>@GoldenApples | <a href="tel:717.434.3226" value="+17174343226" target="_blank">717.434.3226</a><br>
<a href="mailto:goldenapplesdesign@gmail.com" target="_blank">goldenapplesdesign@gmail.com</a><br>
<br>
<br><br><div class="gmail_quote">On Wed, May 2, 2012 at 11:54 PM, Otto <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:otto@ottodestruct.com" target="_blank">otto@ottodestruct.com</a>></span> wrote:<br><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex">
At some point, I will fix this. However, right now, there's nothing<br>
that can be done about it. It's not a priority and screwing with the<br>
codex is a PITA that requires assistance from the systems guys.<br>
There's caching involved and loads of other annoyances.<br>
<br>
If you want to search only the codex, use this page to do it:<br>
<a href="http://codex.wordpress.org/Special:Search" target="_blank">http://codex.wordpress.org/Special:Search</a><br>
<br>
-Otto<br>
<br>
<br>
On Wed, May 2, 2012 at 5:11 PM, Lorelle on WordPress<br>
<div><div><<a href="mailto:lorelleonwordpress@gmail.com" target="_blank">lorelleonwordpress@gmail.com</a>> wrote:<br>
> It isn't up to us and the docs team to like or dislike. We can support,<br>
> cheer on, and dream, but the action on such a task needs to come from the<br>
> site development team. Search is fairly locked down. Not sure who is<br>
> involved in that now. Jane or Ozh should know. Hopefully they will chime in<br>
> on this.<br>
><br>
> Lorelle<br>
><br>
><br>
><br>
> On Wed, May 2, 2012 at 11:53 AM, Nathaniel Taintor<br>
> <<a href="mailto:goldenapplesdesign@gmail.com" target="_blank">goldenapplesdesign@gmail.com</a>> wrote:<br>
>><br>
>> Yes, I do think that on a limited scale, a search box that only searched<br>
>> the Codex should be very doable and would be helpful to most people.<br>
>><br>
>><br>
>> Speaking for myself, I use a browser search bar that posts to<br>
>> <a href="http://codex.wordpress.org/?search=" target="_blank">codex.wordpress.org/?search=</a>, and the results I get are very helpful to me.<br>
>> Being able to type in something like "Settings API" and get to the Codex<br>
>> page with no clicks saves me tons of time when I'm trying to look something<br>
>> up quickly. Definitely better than using the slow Ajax Google search when I<br>
>> know I just want to find the Codex article.<br>
>><br>
>> The biggest problem there is setting up redirects from all the possible<br>
>> search terms to the proper Codex article; there would need to be a whole lot<br>
>> of redirect pages set up.<br>
>><br>
>><br>
>> The simplest ones (looks like there are 500-1000 of these) are the<br>
>> function names and so on:<br>
>><br>
>> {function name} to {prefix ie Function_Reference, Template_Tags,<br>
>> etc.}/{function name}<br>
>><br>
>> Creating these could be easily automated, and I can volunteer to do it, if<br>
>> the docs team approves.<br>
>><br>
>><br>
>> Then there is a more editorial process of creating redirects from common<br>
>> search terms to the most appropriate page, ie. "Spam" to "Combating Comment<br>
>> Spam". This requires more knowledge about which articles are good and<br>
>> regularly updated, and probably some metrics of the most commonly searched<br>
>> terms. Some of this could be automated or taken on by someone like me, but<br>
>> some might need more of a committee to make decisions.<br>
>><br>
>><br>
>> I guess my question is: does anyone see objections as to why these<br>
>> redirect stubs shouldn't be created? I don't personally see any issues with<br>
>> it, but I haven't been working on the Codex very much yet, and I don't want<br>
>> to add things to it that someone with a broader vision of the project thinks<br>
>> is a bad idea.<br>
>><br>
>> Thanks,<br>
>> Than<br>
>><br>
>><br>
>><br>
>><br>
>><br>
>> Nathaniel Taintor, Designer/Developer<br>
>> Golden Apples Design<br>
>> <a href="http://goldenapplesdesign.com" target="_blank">http://goldenapplesdesign.com</a><br>
>><br>
>> @GoldenApples | <a href="tel:717.434.3226" value="+17174343226" target="_blank">717.434.3226</a><br>
>> <a href="mailto:goldenapplesdesign@gmail.com" target="_blank">goldenapplesdesign@gmail.com</a><br>
>><br>
>><br>
>><br>
>> On Wed, May 2, 2012 at 10:24 AM, Lorelle on WordPress<br>
>> <<a href="mailto:lorelleonwordpress@gmail.com" target="_blank">lorelleonwordpress@gmail.com</a>> wrote:<br>
>>><br>
>>> This would be so awesome. Our MediaWiki is integrated into the entire<br>
>>> site, and at one time we had search options set that when you are in the<br>
>>> Codex you only search the Codex and when you are out of the Codex, your<br>
>>> search covers everything. The attempt has been made to open the search to<br>
>>> everything, and it is a mess with Google. A perfect search result would be<br>
>>> one that divided up the resulting content into Codex, Forum, etc. giving<br>
>>> more choice control to the user.<br>
>>><br>
>>> That's the goal, but is it possible between the WordPress and MediaWiki<br>
>>> interfaces? It sounds like you think it is.<br>
>>><br>
>>> The Docs team only has so much control over these things, so hopefully<br>
>>> someone with the ability to engage at the higher authority level on this<br>
>>> will jump in. You got my support. This has been a thorn for a long time.<br>
>>> Thanks for being willing to take it on.<br>
>>><br>
>>> Lorelle<br>
>>><br>
>>><br>
>>><br>
>>><br>
>>> On Tue, May 1, 2012 at 12:09 PM, Nathaniel Taintor<br>
>>> <<a href="mailto:goldenapplesdesign@gmail.com" target="_blank">goldenapplesdesign@gmail.com</a>> wrote:<br>
>>>><br>
>>>> Hi all,<br>
>>>><br>
>>>> The existing search functionality on <a href="http://wordpress.org" target="_blank">wordpress.org</a> has been bugging me,<br>
>>>> and apparently other people as well, for quite a while, and I would like to<br>
>>>> work on helping to fix that - especially in helping to provide a specific<br>
>>>> Codex search functionality.<br>
>>>><br>
>>>> MediaWiki already has a decent search ability, which redirects to the<br>
>>>> found page if an exact match for the search term is found in a page title.<br>
>>>> Exposing this functionality would be an improvement over the current<br>
>>>> situation: eg. compare the results of<br>
>>>> "<a href="http://codex.wordpress.org/?search=posts" target="_blank">http://codex.wordpress.org/?search=posts</a>" vs<br>
>>>> "<a href="http://wordpress.org/search/posts" target="_blank">http://wordpress.org/search/posts</a>". In my opinion, just offering a "Codex<br>
>>>> search" box which used the MediaWiki search results, rather than the Google<br>
>>>> results that appear now, would be helpful for most users trying to navigate<br>
>>>> the Codex.<br>
>>>><br>
>>>> The situation gets trickier, however, with the entries which are<br>
>>>> prefixed with Function_Reference/, Class_Reference/, etc. Look at the search<br>
>>>> results found, for example, for<br>
>>>> "<a href="http://codex.wordpress.org/?search=wp_remote_post" target="_blank">http://codex.wordpress.org/?search=wp_remote_post</a>". Not so pretty... And<br>
>>>> its kind of hard to programmatically determine, for example whether a search<br>
>>>> term should be prefixed with "Function Reference", "Function API", or<br>
>>>> whatever else.<br>
>>>><br>
>>>> Overall, this means that the Codex is not as useful to developers as it<br>
>>>> could be. When I'm working, for example, I depend on DuckDuckGo's bang<br>
>>>> syntax search often to quickly look up manual pages for functions, and the<br>
>>>> experience looking up WordPress functions is definitely subpar as compared<br>
>>>> to other environments. When I'm searching for PHP functions, like "!php<br>
>>>> array_merge", the experience is a quick zero-click lookup. It would be nice<br>
>>>> to have that same experience in the WP Codex, like if searching "!wp<br>
>>>> register_post_type" would bring me directly to the relevant Codex page.<br>
>>>><br>
>>>> What is the solution to this? Does it make more sense to create redirect<br>
>>>> pages for every function name indexed in the codex, ie creating a page<br>
>>>> called "register_post_type" with the content "#REDIRECT<br>
>>>> [[Function_Reference/register_<br>
>>>> post_type]]", or is there an extension that will make searching more<br>
>>>> user-friendly?<br>
>>>><br>
>>>> I'd like to work on this, but I'm not sure what discussions and<br>
>>>> decisions have already happened. Can someone point me to a helpful way to<br>
>>>> contribute?<br>
>>>><br>
>>>> Thanks in advance,<br>
>>>><br>
>>>><br>
>>>> Nathaniel Taintor, Designer/Developer<br>
>>>> Golden Apples Design<br>
>>>> <a href="http://goldenapplesdesign.com" target="_blank">http://goldenapplesdesign.com</a><br>
>>>><br>
>>>> @GoldenApples | <a href="tel:717.434.3226" value="+17174343226" target="_blank">717.434.3226</a><br>
>>>> <a href="mailto:goldenapplesdesign@gmail.com" target="_blank">goldenapplesdesign@gmail.com</a><br>
>>>><br>
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>>><br>
>>><br>
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