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 [email protected] On Wed, May 2, 2012 at 11:54 PM, Otto <[email protected]> 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 > <[email protected]> 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 > > <[email protected]> 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 > >> [email protected] > >> > >> > >> > >> On Wed, May 2, 2012 at 10:24 AM, Lorelle on WordPress > >> <[email protected]> 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 > >>> <[email protected]> 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 > >>>> [email protected] > >>>> > >>>> _______________________________________________ > >>>> wp-docs mailing list > >>>> [email protected] > >>>> http://lists.automattic.com/mailman/listinfo/wp-docs > >>>> > >>> > >>> > >>> _______________________________________________ > >>> wp-docs mailing list > >>> [email protected] > >>> http://lists.automattic.com/mailman/listinfo/wp-docs > >>> > >> > >> > >> _______________________________________________ > >> wp-docs mailing list > >> [email protected] > >> http://lists.automattic.com/mailman/listinfo/wp-docs > >> > > > > > > _______________________________________________ > > wp-docs mailing list > > [email protected] > > http://lists.automattic.com/mailman/listinfo/wp-docs > > > _______________________________________________ > wp-docs mailing list > [email protected] > http://lists.automattic.com/mailman/listinfo/wp-docs >
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