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Re: Simple Search interface
I don't like this for two main reasons:
1) It makes looking for an application 'almost' like searching for an answer. Who knows how someone put the name
of the application into the DB? The substring matching could get pretty complex... but I admit is DOABLE... I just
feel it would be used less if people had to 'search' for there app, and THEN 'search' for there answer...
2) Another page load. This is the biggest. In order to build the list, it requires Another Page Load.
I don't think this is THAT big of a deal. I actually like Dan's suggestion of just making something like a 3 row
select box so the user can easily scroll through the list... or type the first letter of the app to get to that
section of the list and do only a short scroll.
Also - remember... the list is only going to be really large on the first page. As long as we make drill down
easy... people aren't going to have to wade through it all the time. If I even click on ONE sub category to drill
down to before I start looking for the app, I've cut my choices by anywhere from 1/4 to 3/4... depending on how
many top levels we have. The Application list may be 600 on the top level, and a mere 30 ONE LEVEL down.
Thoughts?
Jason
On Tue, Dec 14, 1999 at 02:05:09PM -0800, Aaron Turner wrote:
>
> I've been thinking a lot of how to impliment the Applications dialog in
> the simple search page. I think everyone agrees that the current drop
> down list doesn't even begin to scale as we add applications.
>
> The main problem is most solutions require JavaScript, DHTML, or the like
> which Lynx doesn't support.
>
> So I talked to our master web developer here at Vicinity about it and did
> some brainstorming. Here's what we came up with:
>
> Since each application is known in the SQL database, we can create a
> dialog which allows them to either type in the Application name or type.
> A name would be like apache, pine, netscape, etc. Type would be like web
> server, email client, web browser, etc. We then do a substring match
> against the KBObjects:ObjectName field.
>
> We then return back to the user a dropdown list of the matches but also
> the other applications in the same category. Example:
>
> Joe types "Apache".
>
> We find Apache in the "Web Servers" category. We then find the other
> applications in the Web Servers cat, and return as a drop down:
>
> Apache
> Netscape
> thttpd
> Roxen
> etc.
>
> Joe could also type in 'email' and we would find the following categories:
>
> Email servers
> Email clients
>
> and return in the drop down:
> postfix
> qmail
> smail
> sendmail
> pine
> elm
> mutt
> netscape
> etc.
>
> The advantage of this is that it's completely server side, so it would
> work even on Lynx. Comments?
>
> --
> Aaron Turner, Core Developer http://vodka.linuxkb.org/~aturner/
> Linux Knowledge Base Organization http://linuxkb.org/
> Because world domination requires quality open documentation.
> aka: aturner@vicinity.com, aturner@pobox.com, ion_beam_head@ashtech.net
--
Jason
http://vodka.linuxkb.org/~chardros