From: Andreas C. <co...@am...> - 2006-04-18 21:24:40
|
Hi, it's a simple question, but can I search any two words in "Simple Search" or "Advanced Search" ? For example, I would be search two or more authors, eg. author1 and author2 but the order is random. I can search with: author1.*author2 and with an second search request with author2.*author1 ok - I can search with: (author1|author2).*(author1|author2) but this isn't usable. Is there another choice ? Thanks, Andreas. |
From: Richard K. <kar...@no...> - 2006-04-18 21:48:46
Attachments:
signature.asc
|
> Hi, Hi, Andreas! > it's a simple question, but can I search any two words in "Simple > Search" or "Advanced Search" ? Unfortunately, your simple question doesn't have an inspiring answer. But a very similar question has been asked recently before, so perhaps we should improve our documentation. > Is there another choice ? Not yet. Your "work around" using a regex is the only method which performs a single query. Something that may be more user friendly is to use our search within results options. So, you'd do the first search for author1 & then search within the results for author2. We've talked about improving the search interface in this and various other ways & there is even a version of show.php which can perform both AND and OR searches. Suggestions (or even implementations) are always welcome. --Rick |
From: Matthias S. <re...@ex...> - 2006-04-18 21:56:14
|
Hi Andreas, On Tue, 18-Apr-2006 23:24 +0200, Andreas Czerniak wrote: > it's a simple question, but can I search any two words in "Simple > Search" or "Advanced Search" ? refbase passes the query (that was entered by the user) as given to the MySQL search engine. By default, the query is performed using the "RLIKE" operator. More info is available here: <http://wiki.refbase.net/index.php/Searching#Search_syntax> refbase does not offer a custom search syntax besides what is possible with MySQL. This can be regarded as a bug or a feature, depending on how you look at it. ;-) That said, I agree that it could be easier to simultaneously search on the occurrence of two words within the same field. This question was recently discussed in the Help forum: <http://sourceforge.net/forum/forum.php?thread_id=1470163&forum_id=218758> > For example, I would be search two or more authors, eg. > > author1 and author2 > > but the order is random. > > I can search with: > > author1.*author2 > > and with an second search request with > > author2.*author1 > > ok - I can search with: > (author1|author2).*(author1|author2) > but this isn't usable. Your examples will work fine but I agree that this is a bit "geeky" and that this may not be optimal for the regular user. > Is there another choice ? Yes, currently, the easiest way to search simultaneously for the occurrence of two words (word1 AND word2) is to perform two subsequent searches: Start you search searching for word1, then use the "Search within Results" form above the search results list to search for word2. This sounds more complicated than it actually is (IMHO) and it offers more options, such as searching on different fields or excluding particular words from the result set. Also, it is often more intuitive to see the results while fine-tuning your search pattern. And with any reasonable server setup, results are returned pretty quickly so speed shouldn't be too much of a problem. We have thought of implementing a custom search syntax. However, this would be only beneficial if this new syntax is familiar to the average user, like mimicking Google's syntax. Personally, I like it very much that I'm able to perform searches using MySQL regular expressions, but this is definitively more of a power feature. The user in the above mentioned thread suggested to simply duplicate the text entry forms for each field. While this would work, it isn't an elegant solution and would clutter the screen, which is why I don't think this is an option. Matthias |
From: Matthias S. <re...@ex...> - 2006-04-18 22:11:57
|
Hi, extending a bit on the topic of possible search improvements, below is an excerpt from a previous email to the developer list. I'm interested to hear any opinions about it. Best, Matthias On 10-Mar-2005 at 15:48 +0100 Matthias Steffens wrote: > below are some future ideas that would enhance search capabilities in > refbase. > > 1. Capability, to search all/main fields at once. > > Currently, you can't search e.g. the title, keywords and abstract > fields at once. To do so, we could provide an additional popup menu > entry (called "Anywhere" or something similar) at the top of each > search field selector. A global setting in 'ini.inc.php' (or maybe > better a user-specific setting) could define, which fields would be > searched by this entry. > > Of course, if a user is able to choose the fields that would be > searched by "Anywhere", the name 'Anywhere' is somewhat confusing. > Any other naming ideas? > > 2. Provide a Google-like search syntax: > > Currently, refbase uses the WHERE ... RLIKE ... syntax for most of > its SQL searches. This is cool for folks who are familiar with the > regular expression syntax used by MySQL. But, obviously, most users > don't even know about regular expressions (and would find them > daunting, if they'd know them). > > If, for example, a user enters > > "Steffens Karnesky" > > into the quick search field on the refbase main page, he most > certainly expects refbase to find all entries whose author field > contains the words "Steffens" AND "Karnesky". But instead, refbase > will only return those entries which contain the literal string > "Steffens Karnesky". > > Obviously, it would be great, if refbase would have a help page > explaining its search syntax. In addition, we could include a popup > on the main search pages saying something like: > > Find words: +--------------------+ > | All | > |--------------------| > | Any | > |--------------------| > | Exactly as typed | > |--------------------| > | Regular expression | > +--------------------+ > > with "All" being the default option. (Of course, I'd like to be able > to choose the existing RegEx syntax as default option for myself ;-) > > 3. A customizable search page that can optionally restrict searches > to a user's own literature set > > I think, it would be very helpful to offer the user a search page > which will be (a) customizable and (b) will (optionally) only search > his own literature set. The user could edit (in 'user_options.php') > the list of fields to be displayed on this user-specific search page. > Additionally, he could specify whether this search page shall search > the full database or just his own literature set. |