#77 Search page-needs to be more intuitive

[Tim Smith]

The .NET regular expressions may be simple to implement
but are not user friendly. You don't get what you
expect when searching for straight text.

At a _minimum_ you should provide a button that opens a
reference window with examples of common searches. My
example searches below cover common search needs to
cover in the reference window.

Intuitive characters: *|
* = 0-n occurrences of any characters
| = OR the previous expression
Less intuitive but standard: \ \ = Escape next character

Example1:
Search for=keyword1 keyword2
Should return=All topics with both keywords

Example2:
Search for=keyword1 | keyword2
Should return=Topics containing either keyword1 or keyword2

Example3:
Search for="keyword1 keyword2"
Should return=Topics with the exact phrase "keyword1
keyword2"

Example4:
Search for=keyword1*keyword2
Should return=Topics that contain keyword1 followed by
keyword2 later in the topic text.

Example4:
Search for=keyword1\*keyword2
Should return=Topics that contain the exact text
"keyword1*keyword2"

Example5: Realworld use of FlexWiki as a knowledge base.
Search for=KB GPF .NET Com Interop
Should return=Topics that contain all the words in the
search.

You could still support .NET regular expressions but
make that an advanced search page.
----
Let me know if you want the contribution and I will
write some code to parse the string into a regex
object. I am not a C# coder but would be happy to
contribute VB code.

[Craig Andera]

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Assuming you're willing to integrate the parsing code into
the search page, too, your contribution would be welcome.
But I think we'd want to translate it into C# to maintain
project cohesion. Fortunately, this is dead easy to do -
there are several free translators available on the web. I'm
happy to work with you on the translation if you have any
trouble.

You'll need to sign the AssignmentAgreement, of course, but
then just go ahead and post your contribution to the
flexwiki-users list when it's ready.

[Tim Smith]

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Candera, do you agree to the functional requirements above
or would you like to change them before I code it?

[Craig Andera]

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I would suggest discussing the topic on the flexwiki-users
mailing list as the best place to get consensus. The hybrid
approach that seems to be working right now is to maintain
the document with your current thinking on the wiki and then
refer to it in discussions on the mailing list.

Sound good?