To pull this to a top level discussion, Alex had asked:
One change I was thinking to making to the searches, is normally Links groups by category and returns result by
category name ascending. This really favours results that are in category's that start with a,b,c etc.
How about if we switch to always returning results by score, and then just group the links together by category on a
page. So on page one, you'd have the top 20 matches, but they would be grouped together by category. This means
on page 2 you might have a link in a category that has already appeared in page 1?
Personally, I would like to see links add the category name (linked and short) to the %globals array availabilty when links builds the <linkresults> list.
This way, results can be sorted by score, category, title, etc, and it allows links that are listed by score or title, to have their associated category listed in whatever format the links owner wants -- above the link, at the end of the link in a "more like.." field, etc.
Alex has already built in support for altering the way search results are returned on the various forms (THANKS!), and dynamic page creation promises (maybe?) to allow the user to set preferences on how results are returned, the look of the page, etc.
But, with more flexibility comes more effort on the webmasters part to make sure the forms view correctly in different layouts and preferences.
Quote:
One change I was thinking to making to the searches, is normally Links groups by category and returns result by
category name ascending. This really favours results that are in category's that start with a,b,c etc.
How about if we switch to always returning results by score, and then just group the links together by category on a
page. So on page one, you'd have the top 20 matches, but they would be grouped together by category. This means
on page 2 you might have a link in a category that has already appeared in page 1?
Personally, I would like to see links add the category name (linked and short) to the %globals array availabilty when links builds the <linkresults> list.
This way, results can be sorted by score, category, title, etc, and it allows links that are listed by score or title, to have their associated category listed in whatever format the links owner wants -- above the link, at the end of the link in a "more like.." field, etc.
Alex has already built in support for altering the way search results are returned on the various forms (THANKS!), and dynamic page creation promises (maybe?) to allow the user to set preferences on how results are returned, the look of the page, etc.
But, with more flexibility comes more effort on the webmasters part to make sure the forms view correctly in different layouts and preferences.
Changes to Search Routines