Bugzilla – Bug 738
Searching behavior is poorly designed
Last modified: 2008-12-18 11:50:23 UTC
The search tool is weak - so weak that I don't think I would ever use it. when you search for a string, it searches for that string anywhere in the target. For instances if wanted to search for REO Speedwagon, I would want to search for the phrase REO or Speedwagon. I would start by entering R E etc. If I had a Warren Zevon artist, he would come up in the search string R E - which is completely unnecessary and counter to basic searching. It would also bring up the Cure or bare naked ladies. If I searched for D W, reo speedwagon would come up - again not a smart decision. The obvious way to proceed is to have the search string look for a string "starts with" not "contains." Perhaps it would be viable to "search for any word that starts with" for bands like "The Grateful Dead" where you would not want to search for "The". REO Speedwagon is not anything I would listen to, btw...
server version 6.0 brings in SQL for data storage and organisation. this will allow more flexibility for searching. suggestions for the UI for this feature can go here. Dan's the man for now, but this will likely move to Vidur after the holidays.
I agree, the searching should only look for words starting with the specified search strings. For example: ENG should match: ENGLERBERT HUMPERDINK and MODERN ENGLISH, but not YO LA TENGO. multiple words should imply "and" in searching, so of the list above: ENG MO would match only MODERN ENGLISH (I won't comment on which of these examples I would actually listen to. :)
This will be doable with in the 6.0 branch. I do think there should be a preference for this - as personally I want searching to happen anywhere in the word.
The search UI could handle that. Just look at any parts search on component suppliers' websites. The search form often has a pulldown with things like "contains" "begins with" and "exact match"
For the web UI yes - but not for the client UI.
Jim - the most recent builds from the 6.0 tree now have the ability to switch between "searching in words" or "search beginning of words". It defaults to the later. Let me know what you think. Thanks!
There are 536 bugs in the database with targets of '---' that were fixed prior to new year 2006. I am setting them to targets of 6.2.1 to keep them from showing up in my queries.
Routine bug db maintenance; removing old versions which cause confusion. I apologize for the inconvenience.