[gfsd]Re: Directory Search Function

[Janet Casey]

Hi Jonas,

Thank you for handling this.


   Janet Casey <address@hidden> writes:

       1. The search function from the main gnu page
       (http://www.gnu.org/search.html) successfully pulls up Directory
       entries, but the search function from the Directory home page
       (http://www.gnu.org/directory/) does not.

   I would disagree to some extent. When I try it now, it does return
   results. Try to search for "gnu" for example. However, it seems
   that when it only finds a single match, it doesn't display this.
   There might be other issues too, but it would be good to know what
   you felt was an error and what you would have expected.

Ideally, when I enter the name of a package, the entry for that
package should be first in the list. That is, when I enter foo the
first URL in the list of returns should be
http://www.gnu.org/directory/foo.html. This happens sometimes but not
always: it happened when I searched on 'adjtimex' and
'GYVE,' but not on '31journal' or 'blackarts' or 'VorpalMail.'

The entries further down in the list of returned URLs should be for
packages that (using the example above) have 'foo' somewhere in the
text of their entry. For example, when I searched on 'libpng' I got a
list of entries that have 'libpng' somewhere in their text (ie
packages that have libpng as a requirement). If I had got the 'libpng'
entry as the first entry in the list of returned URLs, and then the
listings that have 'libpng' in their text, the search would have been
perfect.

       2. The 'recent packages' link does not pick up the most recent
       packages, either new entries or updated versions of already entered
       packages.

   The first entry on that page is this;

   2001-11-21
      adjtimex 1.12

   Again, what would you have expected to see there?

When I go to http://www.gnu.org/directory/ and click on Recent
Packages, I geet to http://www.gnu.org/directory/recent.html. the
first three entries I see are 'skipper' dated 2001-10-12, 'boa' dated
2001-09-24, and 'libpng' dated 2001-09-01. I would have expected to
see new entries that have been committed more recently than the 12th
of October ('new packages' meaning packages entered for the first time
as opposed to packages that have previously been entered but whose
entries have recently been modified for some reason).

For example. on the 16th of Oct I committed IRP and on the 18th of
Oct, I committed perltidy. I would have expected to see both of those
since their initial commits were relatively recent.




Janet Casey
Free Software Foundation
http://www.gnu.org
address@hidden