[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
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?
Good idea. I've got all these bookmarked, but I think a number of
people don't know what resources there are. If we're going to put
possible search venues on the wiki, being able to access them from the
wiki makes sense.
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.
Ah, but e-mailing the list is so much less work (for me). :-)
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.
That looks good for Google, with the addition that you might want to
allow quoted phrases (lyx and "clever ideas" becomes
lyx+%22clever+ideas%22 in googlish). For the mailing list, the GMANE
server URI would look like
http://search.gmane.org/?query=lyx+clever+idea&group=gmane.editors.lyx.general
(changing 'general' to 'devel' for the developer mailing list).
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.
I would be inclined to display the result in a child window. That way,
the user isn't bumped off the wiki. On the other hand, for people using
tabbed browsers (which I do), it might be better just to use a regular
HREF link. I'm not sure whether ctrl-click on a link with a child
target opens a new tab or not. (Some portion of my brain knows this,
but it's currently on strike.)
/Paul
