I've just had an idea. Today the search bar in the wiki let's you search
the wiki for pages containing one or more words. The search result is
displayed on a page which for instance looks like this:
http://wiki.lyx.org/LyX/LyX?n=LyX.LyX&action=search&q=ideas
That page again contains the search field that allows you to modify the
search - nothing exciting so far.
However, what if the "search page" contained additional links and forms
that let you search more than just the wiki? How about searching this
mailing list? Or searching Herbert's tips and tricks on LaTeX?
My idea is simply that if you can't find what you're looking for on the
wiki, you want to search for the information elsewhere. So why not make
this easier. A very easy way to improve the situation is to simply add
links to the "search page", e.g. something saying:
"Click here to go and search the users' list"
Any of us can edit the "search page" to add links. Just edit this page
http://wiki.lyx.org/Site/Search
All this requires is that we now the URI of the page to go to in order to
search. This is where I need help. I'd like to know of useful places to go
to in order to search for information related to LyX, e.g. how do we
search the archives of the users' list? How do we search Herbert's Tips
and Tricks?
You don't even have to e-mail me this information. I just created this
page
http://wiki.lyx.org/Site/SearchExternally
so feel free to go there and add the links. I'll take care of it from
there.
However, we can probably do better than just a link to some other site.
Given a "search URI" and its format, i.e. how the search parameters map to
the URI, I can easily create a form that allows the user to submit the
actual search from the wiki page.
An example is a google search for 'lyx', 'clever' and 'ideas':
http://www.google.com/search?q=lyx+clever+ideas
So if I have the URI that's needed in order to search for instance the
mail archive for the words "idea" and "clever", it should be easy for me
to modify the search page so that this is possible.
What I don't know is how this URI should look, and how the search terms
should be inserted. I'd like some help with that.
This can possibly be taken even a step further, by taking the result of
the external search and showing it inside the wiki page. Opinions on if
this is actually useful or not are most welcome.
Finally,
cheers
/Christian
--
Christian Ridderström, +46-8-768 39 44 http://www.md.kth.se/~chr
