[RFC] Search box

[Mads Kiilerich]

On 04/23/2015 09:32 PM, Andrew Shadura wrote:
> Hello,
>
> While playing with Bootstrap styling, I came across the following
> question: should we display a search box instead of a link to the
> search page?
>
> I first implemented a search box which appears after clicking "Search"
> button on the front page. When users type in the box, a dropdown
> appears, suggesting to search not only by file content (default), but
> also by commit messages or file names.

We should consider both searching inside repositories and searching 
"globally". Most of the global search options seems rather pointless to 
me in real world setups. Globally, I only think it makes sense to search 
for repository names (replacing the "Repositories" menu item?) and 
repository description. Inside the repository it makes more sense to 
search commit messages and filenames and file content (in all or tip or 
head revisions???). We should also add Mercurial revset search as hgweb 
has it (even though that probably would look a lot like the current 
changelog page ... just like searching in commit messages perhaps should).

I think the repo search has more need for being made more available. But 
showing two search boxes on all repo pages would also be weird. It needs 
some clarification of which is which ... but consistency and integration 
would also be nice.

Other pages do have (or doesn't have) other kinds of search filtering. 
That should also be considered.

> I have also prepared different options regarding to the location of the
> box. GitHub places it on the left, Bitbucket places in on the right,
> GitLab doesn't have it at all.

But AFAICS, bitbucket only has a "find a repository" option ... which is 
pretty much like our Repositories search field?

> Here's a proof of concept of my "dynamic" search box:
> https://codehost.me.uk/

As (more or less) mentioned before, I don't like that it changes the 
menu content in an unexpected way, that there is no way back, and that 
it doesn't show what you are searching - "commit" and "filename" only 
shows up after typing something ... and I don't know what it these two 
items on the list really mean ... and I wonder where the third option 
"file content" is.

> And here's comparison of different options:
> https://shadura.me/kallithea/search-box/

I don't think Search needs more expose on the pages right now. It needs 
better usability and functionality before we put a search field on every 
page. I also doubt it is something people use a lot so it doesn't have 
to be _that_ exposed and attract that much attention. The old search 
page is not elegant but I think it is more usable than the fancy widget.

/Mads