Help talk:Searching

Icons of search engine plugins should reflect language of Wikipedias

---As David Göthberg suggests I copy this here from village pump (proposals). --Edupedro (talk) 02:00, 1 November 2008 (UTC)---

Hello: I think that many people like me look for information in different Wikipedias (different editions/languages of it). I believe that not few people, to save time, use the offered (in one of the first code lines, that begins with <link rel="search") search engine plug-ins for the browsers. If Firefox is used each plug-in comes with an icon (in this case a W). The problem is that, as the icons of the different Wikipedias are all the same, it happens to me often that I search in a Wikipedia that I didn't want to look for. I think that this could easily happen to more people. The solution is easy: to put a flag in a corner of the icon: for example the one of Italy for the Italian Wikipedia. Thanks, --Edupedro (talk) 22:29, 26 October 2008 (UTC)

But is English a UK, English, or USA language? Is Portugese a Portugese or Brazilian language? What flag would we use for Anglo Saxon? And the flag would be so small, it would be hard to work out what it depicted. DendodgeTalk^Contribs 22:33, 26 October 2008 (UTC)

Hello: I would go to the origins and use the flag of England for the English Wikipedia and the one of Portugal for the Portuguese version. I imagine that some Australian, ... and Brazilian ... people would prefer to use different flags: the solutions is easy, create a page with the search engine plug-ins (for example Wikipedia:search engine plug-ins for the English edition) with different flags to choose from. For the Anglo-Saxon Wikipedia "ang" could be used instead of a flag. I've been using personalized icons for the Wikipedia search engine plug-ins from some months ago and can confirm that the flags are easily seen (and my vision is normal, not excellent) and really help to search faster, in a more comfortable way and not confusing looking for in a different Wikipedia. You can see a similar solution for the Dutch and Nynorsk editions in Mycroft and for Encarta in the same web. Thanks, --Edupedro (talk) 23:22, 26 October 2008 (UTC)

A person can already restrict searches to a particular language Wikipedia by adding a search term, such as site:en.wikipedia.org for the English Wikipedia. You can even create a "smart keyword" in Firefox so that you don't have to type as much. (Also, I think that the "W" icons you mention are actually part of the Firefox browser, rather than something provided by the Wikimedia Foundation; if so, it's somewhat pointless to make a suggestion on this page.) -- John Broughton (♫♫) 14:44, 27 October 2008 (UTC)

That's not actually true. While Firefox does ship with a Wikipedia plugin, every WP page also uses OpenSearch to provide a search plugin for auto-discovery by any compliant browser. OpenSearch allows a site to specify a default icon. The request is perfectly cromulent when discussing them. Smart keywords are undiscoverable and are basically deprecated in favour of OpenSearch (and the Add to Search Bar extension, which is due for integration into Firefox in future), and are a workaround for the issue described rather than a solution. Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 15:01, 27 October 2008 (UTC)

Hello: In the past I searched sometimes from Google adding for example site:en.wikipedia.org in the end. I think it's useful, but the search engine plug-ins make the searches faster and more comfortable. I didn't know about the "smart keywords" of FF: I've tried them and find them OK. But if you usually search in more than 20 web sites or pages (like me) I find it difficult to remember so many keywords and when you use 2 or 3 versions of the same web (for example of WordReference or Wikipedia) it can be confusing. So I prefer the search engine plugins: they work with Explorer and Firefox. The first one only admits the OpenSearch format and doesn't show icons, while FF admits both OpenSearch and Sherlock and shows icons, which is really helpful. Every page of en.wikipedia.org has as one of the first lines of code this one: <link rel="search" type="application/opensearchdescription+xml" href="/w/opensearch_desc.php" title="Wikipedia (en)" />. It offers the search engine plug-in, located where href says: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/opensearch_desc.php. If we go to that page and open it with the notepad we can see the icon label (<Image height="16" width="16" type="image/x-icon">), that contains the URL of the icon for the plug-in: in this case http://en.wikipedia.org/favicon.ico (the favicon of Wikipedia, shown if we enter this URL in the address bar of the browser). My suggestion would be to use instead an icon with something to distinguish it from other Wikipedias (languages). To avoid controversy it could be just the "en" Wiki (abbreviation). And to make it more visual I'd create a page called Wikipedia:search engine plug-ins with several plug-ins, each one with the flag of England, UK, USA, Australia, ..... so anyone can choose the one which prefers. Regards, --Edupedro (talk) 23:57, 27 October 2008 (UTC)

You may want to move this discussion to WP:VPPR, as a proposal. -- John Broughton (♫♫) 20:24, 28 October 2008 (UTC)

←I'm thinking this probably isn't the greatest idea. It's just an invitation to drama and arguments over using the 'right' flag. Plus, I just don't see many people using it--and those who would, probably already know, or know where to ask, how to change favicons. [ roux ] [x] 23:33, 29 October 2008 (UTC)

Well, to you Americans it might seem strange, but most of us Europeans speak several languages and regularly use several different language Wikipedias. (Consider that for most of us there are several countries within just some hours train ride.)

I use Firefox and I use the search plug-ins that Wikipedia offers, since they are very convenient and in many ways are better than using an external search engine. And since the search box on the pages don't open the result in a new window, then that box is not an alternative to the search plug-ins. I have a whole bunch of Wikipedia search plug-ins, but all of them have the same white [W] icon. So it is pretty confusing. It happens all too often that I can't find what I search for and try several alternative spellings until I realise that my search box has the German or Swedish search selected, not the English one.

One fairly okay alternative is of course as Edupedro suggested to use the short text form of the language, like "en" for the English Wikipedia. But we who use multiple languages know that it is a long standing tradition to use the "origin" flag of each language. That is, most multilingual web sites use the British flag for English, the Portuguese flag for Portuguese, and so on. I have actually several times seen Brazilian web sites where they use the Portuguese flag to mark the language, in-spite the site being very Brazilian.

And the flag doesn't have to be big, since it is merely a matter of telling apart a handful of known flags. One only needs some pixels to see the colour difference between for instance a British, German and Swedish flag. As little as 8×6 pixels can be enough for that. I think you can tell which one is which of these flags, with the Wikipedia favicon as size comparison:

--David Göthberg (talk) 02:38, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

That's Russia, Germany, and Swaziland, right? It's even worse on my laptop, where the first one is Puerto Rico and the third is Barbados, but I can't find anything with the black-and-yellow stripes of the second flag. --Carnildo (talk) 08:06, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

See WP:Icons for the issues with flags Gnevin (talk) 10:40, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

Carnildo: I hope you are just trying to be funny, right? What I meant is that since I know that I speak English, German and Swedish, and have installed the search plug-ins for those languages, then those tiny flags are enough for me to tell apart which plug-in is which. And I would actually use slightly bigger flags, since there are plenty of space in the favicon. And the three examples above were resized by MediaWiki's SVG renderer. When I use a better tool for the resizing and do some hand tweaking the images become slightly clearer. Now, if I only had some tool to add those images to the plug-ins...

--David Göthberg (talk) 16:01, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

I'm being completely serious. What I'm saying is exactly what I see when I look at those icons. You need to consider that not everyone has an LCD monitor capable of reproducing crisp single-pixel areas of color. My desktop monitor is an old CRT connected through a cheap KVM switch, while my laptop is an OLPC XO-1, which cannot display detail that is less than 2 pixels on a side (you should see the rainbow effects that result when someone tries to be cute and use halftoning instead of a 50% grey). --Carnildo (talk) 21:45, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

Another option could be to precede or superimpose the W logo with a little language code. These could be created using a tiny pixel font, 5 pixels or so tall. —Michael Z. 2008-10-30 16:49 z

DE.W

EN.W

WPT

The last one needs a 1-px white outline for the language code, so it's clearly readable over the W. —Michael Z. 2008-10-30 16:55 z

Hello: The Wikipedia's search engine plug-ins that I have at the moment installed are the one for the English version and the one for Spanish. I did the procedure (easy and quick but "craftwork") that you can see in this user subpage of mine to see flags in the bottom of the icons with the W. These flags are bigger than the ones shown by David Göthberg. I can recognize well David's flags and very well the ones I use. I used the tiny command-line program of Fatih Kodak to covert the personalized icons to the code I inserted in the plug-ins (it can be downloaded from this page of him -for Linux and Windows- and also can be used online from this page also of Fatih). I have had a look to Wikipedia:Icons and seen that has nothing for these plug-ins. We could put a link there to a new page (for example Wikipedia:search engine plug-in) with different versions of the English search engine plug-in, each one with a different icon: the default one (W), one with "en" on the bottom of the W, another one with the flag of England, another with the one of the UK, Ireland, USA, Canada, Jamaica, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, India, ...... I think we shouldn't discuss about which one is the best, just offer the possibility to everyone to choose the one (s)he preffers. I think that page would really be helpful for many people (and avoid the "craftwork"). Thanks, --Edupedro (talk) 21:45, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

Edupedro: Oh, thanks for the links! Now I have inserted flag icons in all the Wikipedia search plug-ins I use. It looks very nice in my Firefox, no confusion anymore. I actually use flags that are 13x8 pixels, placed in the lower right corner of the usual [W] icon.

And yes, let's make a how-to page named something like Wikipedia:Search plug-ins, where we can document all this. I see that Wikipedia:Searching#Browser-specific help does have some (outdated) information on this. An option would be to update that one instead.

I have now read up on these plug-ins and did some testing, and have a nifty image trick to report. (But let's agree on the page name for our how-to page first and then discuss more there, or move this discussion to Wikipedia talk:Searching.) But I think I have found out something even better:

Instead of uploading the plug-ins to our how-to page I suggest we create them at mycroft.mozdev.org. I took a close look at that site and there is much more to that site than first meets the eye. We can actually update the existing Wikipedia search plug-ins there and add new ones, with any images we like. (And many of the Wikipedia plug-ins there do need a work over.) That site has much better handling of plug-in creation, updating and installation than we would have on our how-to page. I will probably create some plug-ins with the language icons I have made, and do some updating of the existing plug-ins there.

--David Göthberg (talk) 05:18, 31 October 2008 (UTC)

End of section moved here from the Village pump (proposals).

Hello, David (everyone invited also, of course): I changed the icons of Mycroft for Wikipedia in English and in Spanish a couple of times (with flags in the bottom) but they put the previous ones again, without the flags. So I think it will be better to do all for these languages in the Wikipedia site. I think that Mycroft people don't want to change the plug-ins already in OpenSearch format. But I see many still with Sherlock format. This can be a good chance to put personalized icons with flags while we change those plug-ins from Sherlock to OpenSearch. I think we can also edit Wikipedia:Searching and/or create the page you propose: Wikipedia:Search plug-ins, and redirect to it Wikipedia:Search plugins, Wikipedia:Search plug-in, Wikipedia:Search plugin, Wikipedia:Search engine plug-ins, Wikipedia:Search engine plugins, Wikipedia:Search engine plug-in and Wikipedia:Search engine plugin. And, as you say, we can inform about all this in Wikipedia talk:Searching. Today I go for a trip of one week, so probably I won't be able to write in Wikipedia. But if you can and want go ahead, please. Thank you, --Edupedro (talk) 01:56, 1 November 2008 (UTC)

Okay, if the people over at Mycroft are reverting your flag additions, then I guess we have to make our own page here. But it sounds like you changed the images of the existing plug-ins over there? Then I agree with their reverts, since I think that was the wrong approach. The existing "default" plug-in over there should have the old default Wikipedia search plug-in icon, if nothing else to not provoke others who disagrees with the flags. What we should do is to add new plug-ins with new names and with the flags. So we should try that and see how they react.

But if that doesn't work then we have to make our own page here. It probably is a good idea anyway since then we get a talk page too where people can discuss the design of the icons and ask questions. And since this will mean a long list of plug-ins with icon examples and so on, and these plug-ins only work in some browsers, then I think the plug-ins should have a separate page instead of that we extend Wikipedia:Searching.

I have a number of ideas how to make our page work neatly. I'll put it on my to-do list and get to work with it when I get the time. And regarding the nifty image trick I discovered: I can make it so the plug-in file we store here doesn't contain the image, instead it links to the image as stored here at Wikipedia (the same image we will show in our list here). At least in my Firefox 2 the browser then automatically download and substitute the image into the plug-in file on first load. We have to check if that works for the other browsers that use this search plug-in standard too. This means people will get the latest version of the image in their plug-in when they install the plug-in. Which means we don't need to update both the image and the plug-in here each time we update the image. (But user's that already have installed a plug-in and want the new image need to get the plug-in file again.)

I think the search plug-in icons should be uploaded to Commons, and we need a category name for the images. We have to check what is the proper name for such a category at Commons.

It is currently not clear to me if we should (and are allowed to) upload the search plug-in files themselves to Commons, or if we should upload them here at the English Wikipedia. Or perhaps they should be uploaded to Meta-Wiki or so?

Actually, since we are going to make search plug-ins for many languages, then in theory it is kind of wrong to put the plug-in page itself here at the English Wikipedia. We should perhaps move all this to Meta-Wiki, and just link to that from the appropriate pages here?

--David Göthberg (talk) 21:05, 1 November 2008 (UTC)

Back again!! (sorry, David & everyone, but I was busy then, later forgot, later remembered but busy again, ...). It happens that the pages we can create in Wikipedia only allow to edit a part of the final HTML page we can see (only inside the body HTML element; no JavaScript), so it's not possible to do what is required: a XML page + a call to it via a) the head HTML element of another page (autodetection; more info) or b) a Javascript function in another page (clicking; more info). I've updated the help page I created inside my User namespace to make it easier the icon change to anyone interested (with the a) method using two files/pages hosted in an off-Wikipedia server). If you create plugins for Mycroft with alternate names (for existing Wikipedia language versions) perhaps they will delete them. But even if they keep them and you use them (having deleted the standard ones) the browser will keep on offering the standard ones in every Wikipedia page you visit (the arrow background color changes, so it can be disturbing for some people). In Commons only video, image and sound files can be uploaded. So, yes, the best we can do is to talk about this in Meta-Wiki. Regards, --Edupedro (talk) 21:06, 3 March 2010 (UTC)

I've created a page in Meta-Wiki proposing this. --Edupedro (talk) 21:37, 3 March 2010 (UTC)

Merging Help:Go button

Note: This section has been moved from Help talk:Searching, [1]

THe Help:Go button article is very short and is really just a specific use of the search function. I think it would be a better context to merge it entirely. Current we only have 'go button- see 'go button' and a refrence or two to it in the rest of the text. Lee∴V (talk • contribs) 17:47, 2 November 2009 (UTC)

Yes, good idea, as part of a much-needed general cleanup and update of this page. (I understand the most current technical documentation on the search function - which I would have expected to be at mw:Help:Searching - is actually on en.wp at WP:Searching.)--Kotniski (talk) 18:31, 2 November 2009 (UTC)

Update I have changed the merge destination to WP:Searching As I am about to propose we merge this entire article to that one ....Lee∴V (talk • contribs) 19:13, 2 November 2009 (UTC)

 Done User:Gareth Aus has performed the merge, many thanks.--Lee∴V (talk • contribs) 00:02, 10 December 2009 (UTC)

Viewing search results

Resolved

I feel it must be my fault, but I presently appear only to be able to view the first 51 results of a search. I have created a page tacksman and am interested in seeing what other articles may contain references to a "tack", i.e. a Scottish form of lease. A search for "tack" produces 2,288 articles and displays results 1-51. How do I get to see results 52 to 2,288? The rubric at the bottom ("View (previous 500 | next 500)...") looks promising but does not actually provide a link. Any help gratefully received. 45ossington (talk) 10:56, 11 December 2009 (UTC)

The hard limit is set to 50 temporarily until we get some new servers. --rainman (talk) 11:23, 11 December 2009 (UTC)

It seems the hard limit only applies when choosing to view 100 or more items at a time. If I view 20 or 50 items at a time I can continue far beyond the first 50 items without any problem.

--David Göthberg (talk) 15:50, 11 December 2009 (UTC)

The hard limit has been removed, we can again see more than the first 50 search results.

--David Göthberg (talk) 01:26, 30 January 2010 (UTC)

Help links on Special:Search

Parts of this message is for Alan Liefting, but most of it is also relevant for anyone else reading this page so I leave it here instead of on his talkpage. (I'll tell him to come here.)

Hi Alan. I did some actions today that probably looks strange and proably makes you feel overrun, so I want to explain what I did and why I did it:

First of all, I do agree with your general idea to write shorter more reader oriented help pages for several of the more important help areas. But today I reverted your "creation" of Help:Searching and again made it a redirect to Wikipedia:Searching. The reason is that much of Wikipedia:Searching already is meant for readers. Or rather, both readers and editors have use of about the same search advice. Although this page could use a better lead section.

Soon after that I protected Help:Searching. The protection was not to prevent you from trying to create it again. But because today I re-added the help links on Special:Search. (Note that for technical reasons the help links are currently only shown after a search has been done, so you don't see them immediately when going to Special:Search.) We used to have those links, but they were removed kind of by accident. See discussion about the re-adding of the help links at MediaWiki talk:Searchmenu-exists#Request. And the help link of course points to Help:Searching, not Wikipedia:Searching, since that is a better name, at least when shown as a help link. (We probably should move Wikipedia:Searching to Help:Searching.) Since we now again have that link on Special:Search that pagename becomes "highly visible" so it now is a high-risk target. So from now on Help:Searching needs to be protected.

But Wikipedia:Searching is only semi-protected, so you are welcome to help make this page better.

--David Göthberg (talk) 01:22, 30 January 2010 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Searching is very much a reader oriented page and is more comprehensive than my Help:Searching stub. What I am trying to achieve is separation of reader and editors pages. This is not set down as a policy from what I have seen but it should be. Wikipedia namespace is the sole domain of editors and the Help namespace is for readers and editors. Personally I would like to see it used more for readers but that is not so important. We achieve separation between content and project quite well in article namespace but not so well in category, template and help namespaces. Content categories get littered with User and Template pages for instance. Since Wikipedia:Searching is reader oriented why don't we move it to Help:Searching? -- Alan Liefting (talk) - 02:13, 30 January 2010 (UTC)

Requested move

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section. A summary of the conclusions reached follows.

The result was move to Help:Searching . -- -- Alan Liefting (talk) - 07:11, 13 February 2010 (UTC)

---

Wikipedia:Searching → Help:Searching — The page is aimed at readers. Wikipedia namespace is project space for editors. Help namespace is for reader help (and editor help but I feel that Wikipedia namespace should be for editor help). I am in the process of developing help pages aimed at readers alone and I want a search help page for readers. See Category:Reader help for some of the other pages that I have created. -- Alan Liefting (talk) - 00:44, 2 February 2010 (UTC)

Survey

Feel free to state your position on the renaming proposal by beginning a new line in this section with *'''Support''' or *'''Oppose''', then sign your comment with ~~~~. Since polling is not a substitute for discussion, please explain your reasons, taking into account Wikipedia's naming conventions.

• Support - thought we had moved this already!! Lee∴V (talk • contribs) 01:21, 2 February 2010 (UTC)

I hadn't moved the page. I created a stub page but it was redirected here. -- Alan Liefting (talk) - 01:53, 2 February 2010 (UTC)

• Support - This is a help page, so naming it "Help:Searching" is clearer. Especially if/when linked to without any text around it that tells what the link is for. And I also agree with the general idea that reader oriented help should be in help space, and when we also have an editor oriented help page on the same subject then we should place it in Wikipedia space. If we only have an editor oriented page on a subject, then it doesn't matter which of the two namespaces we put it in. --David Göthberg (talk) 02:25, 2 February 2010 (UTC)

• Support although it isn't the case that the Help namespace is only for reader help, nor that help on searching is entirely reader-oriented. However, whichever way you look at it, this is Help-type help and not Project-Space-type help (policies and guidelines and so on), so it belongs in Help space.--Kotniski (talk) 08:53, 2 February 2010 (UTC)

Discussion

Any additional comments:

We don't need the separation to be so complete, searching is a good example, it is mainly for readers, but a few extra bits to cover editors is a small price to pay instead of trying to maintain two searching pages, and yes many of the pages can be drastically improved for both readers and editors! Lee∴V (talk • contribs) 01:27, 2 February 2010 (UTC)

I am not aiming for 100% separation between reader and editor help info but I want pages aimed at readers uncluttered with the technicalities of editing. Editors are a small subset of the total number of visitors to WP. This page, as it currently stands, is aimed predominately at the reader which is why I suggested a page move. In retrospect I want to have a Help:Searching and a Wikipedia:Searching, the latter to be a more extensive page for editors. If Help:Searching is linked to Wikipedia:Searching the needs of editors and readers is satisfied. -- Alan Liefting (talk) - 01:53, 2 February 2010 (UTC)

• Done, I moved the old history to Help:Searching/history. Cenarium (talk) 17:17, 9 February 2010 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Infoboxes

Search does not return results for data in infoboxes. BTW Google does so if your lookin for some Infobox data then the best tool appears to be Google. SunCreator (talk) 23:54, 4 February 2010 (UTC)

sorting by date

Is it possible to get search results sorted by date? I.e. I want to see all the articles matching some search terms, starting with the most recently edited and going backwards from there. Thanks. 66.127.55.192 (talk) 07:36, 12 February 2010 (UTC)

Unfortunately it's not possible, but there's a bug request for it. Cenarium (talk) 21:52, 12 February 2010 (UTC)

Thanks. I wrote a hack with the search API to retrieve and sort the search results on the client side. It's still not really what I want but it's a start. 66.127.55.192 (talk) 08:56, 13 February 2010 (UTC)

I can't see the title of my article among the suggestions in the searching box

Yesterday I created a page about the Turkish TV series Geniş Aile, but when I type the first letters in the searching box, I can't see "Geniş Aile" in the suggestions. How can I see it? Mutlu mpal 5591 (talk) 10:25, 15 February 2010 (UTC)

it's there now so there (when I type genis ') must be a slight delay Lee∴V (talk • contribs) 14:51, 15 February 2010 (UTC)

It takes a while for the search index to update after you create or edit an article. I think this is in the docs somewhere. It is hard to get around this without taking a big performance hit in the search system. 66.127.55.192 (talk) 01:14, 16 February 2010 (UTC)

Sort order

What is the algorithm for the sort order for search results? Libcub (talk) 06:20, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

mw:User:Rainman/search internals. --rainman (talk) 11:48, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

"Updating search index" out of order?

Every search result is dated to the 16 February 2010 or older. Is it possible, that somebody check the bot??? THX --Pitlane02 (talk) 21:52, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

Sorry, wrong place! --Pitlane02 (talk) 21:54, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

weird false positive

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Search?search=cluebot finds the word "cluebot" in Preamble to the United States Constitution/text. Examination of that page, including a fair amount of its revision history, doesn't show any occurrences of that word.

66.127.52.47 (talk) 21:11, 14 April 2010 (UTC)