Feedback on improved Javadoc search

[Jonathan Gibbons]

On 1/30/19 12:46 PM, Martin Buchholz wrote:
> Maybe not quite what you want, but:
> - javadoc search is awesome!
> - I'd like a snippet of html so I can embed a doc search box in my own 
> home page.
The only way I could imagine that working is if the snippet of html 
visits the page with a search query in the query part of the URL, so 
that the API page is visited and it is as though the search query is 
entered into the search box on that page. Would that be sufficient? It 
means a search would be limited to a specific version of an API.
> - I'd like (browser-specific) instructions so that I can do a search 
> from my browser's address bar.

Where we we find (browser-specific) instructions on how to do custom 
searches?


> - I'd like a help button so I can easily look up the semantics of API 
> search, especially as it acquires more convenient but hard-to-discover 
> features.
The place for the information would seem to be the existing help page, 
but maybe there's a "?" button near the search box.
> - Where is the definitive source of information on javadoc search?  
> The JEP itself is frozen now.

JEPs are not frozen and can be updated.  As Hannes indicated in a 
separate response, we are working on an official "Specification" for 
javadoc search, not so much for the end user, but for experts, for 
reference, and for control via the CSR progress.  There's a different 
level of end-user documentation that should exist and would be more 
friendly. That being said, one of the original goals of javadoc Search 
was that it should not be necessary for folk to read a manual to use the 
feature ;-) Just curious, is there a public specification for what you 
can do in Google Search?


> - If I right-mouse-click on "SEARCH" the previous word "METHOD" is 
> also highlighted, and Chrome offers to do a Google search on 
> "METHODSEARCH" ("""did you mean METHOD SEARCH?""" Nope.)

Separate from any issues in Chrome, I think the behavior of clicking in 
the Search box could/should  be improved.

-- Jon

>
> On Tue, Jan 29, 2019 at 7:57 AM Hannes Wallnöfer 
> <hannes.wallnoefer at oracle.com <mailto:hannes.wallnoefer at oracle.com>> 
> wrote:
>
>     Hi all,
>
>     I’m looking for feedback on the Javadoc search feature which I’ve
>     been trying to improve.
>
>     A prototype is available for testing here:
>
>     http://cr.openjdk.java.net/~hannesw/8178982/api.03/
>
>     A short list of things that are changed compared to the current
>     implementation:
>
>       - Match against word boundaries instead of anywhere in a name,
>     e.g. `in` will match `invoke` but not `print`
>
>       - Allow search to go all the way from package name to member name
>
>       - Allow partial/camel case style matches anywhere, e.g.
>     `j.l.Obj.e` will match `java.lang.Object.equals(Object)`
>
>       - Try to provide better ranking of results and suppress
>     peripheral matches
>
>     I’m interested in feedback of any kind: how it works for you,
>     whether or not it supports your search habits, and whether the
>     results are what you expect them to be.
>
>     Thanks,
>     Hannes
>
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