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We have links like this that have stopped working: http://www.eclipse.org/search/search.cgi?q=dynamic&ul=%2Fnewslists%2Fnews.eclipse.tools.emf&cmd=Search%21&form=extended&wf=574a74&ps=10&m=all&t=5&wm=wrd&t=News&t=Mail Is it no longer possible to restrict a search to a specific newsgroup? I consider that a major loss of functionality and feel that support for it needs to be restored.
Eric mentioned this in the newsgroup: I use Google to search the newsgroups. Prepend "site:eclipse.org" (without the quotes) to your search terms. To search a specific group, also include "eclipse.newcomer" (including the quotes) in your terms. For example: http://www.google.com/search?q=site%3Aeclipse.org+%22eclipse.newcomer%22 Hope this helps, Eric I think this isn't going to be obvious to folks wanted to do searches. So at the very least, some documentation is needed on the page...
We used to run our own indexer but it was a huge resource hog, and apparently not all that useful as folks started adding Google search to their pages [1] We discontinued its use in favor of Google. As a bonus, we make some money each day on all those searches. On what page can we add some documentation? [1] http://eclipse-projects.blogspot.com/2007/12/google-search-across-eclipse-projects.html
(In reply to comment #2) > On what page can we add some documentation? What about a nice form which would allow to enter search terms, pick newsgroups and then generates the Google query?
Yes, I like Gunnar's idea. We need something to make it evident how to do a good search. Searching a specific newsgroup is an important way to encourage folks to reuse answers...
I agree with the idea of a search form. We really encourage newcomers to search the newsgroups to see if their questions have already been answered. It is not realistic to ask them to do this if it isn't very easy and obvious how to do this. I think this is an opportunity to make the newsgroup search even more newbie friendly, but using a nice form. It should be somewhere where new users will see it. I would suggest two places. First, replace the Search feature on the http://www.eclipse.org/newsgroups/ page with the new, improved form. Second, provide a link to this same form in the "How can I get started using Eclipse?" and "Where do I get support?" sections of the newcomers page -- http://www.eclipse.org/home/newcomers.php. Ideally the form would look something like this: Search text: Select one forum or all forums (with list): Posted on or after this date: Thanks. Mark
Adding my support for a way like Gunnar describes to submit a search scoped to the Eclipse newsgroups. Usually, I am in a situation where I remember seeing someone post on a topic in one of the newsgroups, but I cannot recall which one. So, I find that I want to search the subset of newsgroups that I regularly read (for example eclipse.newcomer, eclipse.platform.rcp, eclipse.platform). I've voted for this bug. --Lee Anne
Google provides another query modifier "inurl:" that can be used to ensure that the name of the newsgroup is in the URL. The archived newsgroup messages seem to contain the newsgroup name in their URLs. A query such as: "site:eclipse.org inurl:news.eclipse.newcomer search terms here" (as it appears in the search text field) or as a URL: http://www.google.com/search?q=site%3Aeclipse.org+inurl%3Anews.eclipse.newcomer+search+terms+here seems to do the right thing. This modifier seems to work with the Google custom search that is used by the search field at www.eclipse.org but I don't know enough about Google custom search to know how easy it would be to drive the search from a form that has some sort of newsgroup selector to fill in the value for the query modifier.
It's good to know how to use Google to work around the problem. However, I think we need to keep in mind the most important point on this. THE NEWSGROUP SEARCH NEEDS TO WORK FOR THOSE NEW TO ECLIPSE. It is in our best interest to make the newsgroup search as user friendly as possible to newcomers, to encourage them to look for answers to their questions in previous posts. At a BARE MINIMUM, we should put up a link called something like "How to search the newsgroups" to provide examples for how to do this. A MUCH BETTER solution is to provide a search form as a front-end to the Google search. Thanks. Mark
(In reply to comment #8) > THE NEWSGROUP SEARCH NEEDS TO WORK FOR THOSE NEW TO ECLIPSE. Because Mark is yelling at us, I went ahead and fixed this with a bit of crafty JavaScript. I hate yelling ;)
Thanks. Sorry for the yelling. (I didn't realize caps were considered yelling. I'll be more considerate in the future.) Mark
I'M GOING TO TRY THIS YELLING THING IN THE FUTURE CONSIDERING HOW EFFECTIVE IT IS! :-P THANKS DENIS! hehehe
(In reply to comment #11) > I'M GOING TO TRY THIS YELLING THING IN THE FUTURE CONSIDERING HOW EFFECTIVE IT > IS! :-P > THANKS DENIS! hehehe Oh, great. Next we'll have Shout The Vote or people will "vote this one up to +11." :)
In all seriousness, I knew this was a huge pain point for everyone supporting the newsgroup users, and the fix was easy. Mark's gentle nudge served as a great reminder, and besides -- Mark is busy enough as it is with his other endeavours [1] that he didn't need aggravation from our site. I assume everyone's happy, so away goes the bug to the CLOSED factory. [1] http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0223316/
