From: Gavin Sinclair Date: 2003-01-27T17:23:21+09:00 Subject: Re: Can we attack the 'not enough libraries' thing straight on? On Monday, January 27, 2003, 6:13:31 PM, Hiroshi wrote: > But, I realize it while this discussion, things aren't > going our way for now. So I'm wathing discussions > interestingly. Good to know. > # Back to the style issue, we have a plan to introduce > # wiki-like feature to RAA. That's for linking proejcts > # and for adding comments of users. This sounds excellent. >> From: Daniel Carrera [mailto:dcarrera@math.umd.edu] >> Sent: Monday, January 27, 2003 2:46 AM >> I certainly think that RAA should have a search feature. > Maybe I misunderstood you again, but does this English > sentence imply that RAA doesn't have a search feature now? > Or are you thinking more detailed search e.g. "search by > release date, category and description"? That's on our > ToDo... The current search could be improved, but it already provides 60+% of what anyone could possibly want (i.e. a search engine). Some people seem to be ignorant of RAA's search engine altogether! (I do think it should be moved up the top right now; that's almost a web UI standard!) OK, I've had my 2c, but I just put another nickel in the slot. The only thing required to be able to do very effective searches is some metadata that can be indexed (or brute-force-searched; who cares?). The simplest and best way to do this is to have some standard keywords that package owners can apply to their packages. A good web interface is not hard: either check-boxes or a multi-list. (Allow extra keywords in a text area.) The same interface can be used to search for stuff. Knowing *what* you can valuably search for means more powerful searching, and means you can effectively browse as well - search whatever categories (oops, I mean "keywords") you are interested in. This equates, more or less, to multiple categorisation, but without all the hassle of working out how to implement such a beast. Easy enough? Good enough? Gavin