Advanced search options, but not complicated

[sinus]

Hi all,
First allow me to say: I saw a lot of "sorrys" here for not be sure, if they are on the right place, pleace take also my sorry, if I a on the wrong place here. But in fact, for a newbie, it is not easy to choose, where to put a post.

I have read A LOT here about searching. I know, advanced search is in the pipeline. I read also some posts about mods, for example this
http://forum.coppermine-gallery.net/index.php?topic=11272.0

Allow me to say and ask this: I have no doubt, you all here nows exactly how to search efficiently. Like in Google. But a lot of users does not know this. I am on testing cpg and start a site, but my target "clients" will be journalists, artists and family members. A lot of them do not know very good how to search.

So I give them with cpg the possibility to "search" by catalogues/albums. But sometimes this is not a very efficient way (specialy because we cannot put an image in several albums in cpg - at the moment).

Hence we must have an easy way to search. Therefore I ask for your advanced search: Could we not have a combined search page?
I think for example at first for a "google - like" search.

First section:
A box like google, where we can simply put in words. A seond box where we can put words for a "BUT  NOT" - search.
Instead one box for the words these could be also more than one box
A VERY simple solution (do not look at the design) could be something like this:
http://www.sinus.ch/matchsuche.html

Here, in this section, maybe could be a link to the realy advanced users for a power - search-page.
But the normal user (like me) has for example trouble to find out, what he must do, when he wants use two words as an AND - search.
"Must I use commas, the word AND or simply a space between words ..."

This is one reason, why maybe instead one textbox, several boxes could be an alternativ!?

Second section:
A dropdown-list OR a open list with keywords like we had here some mods. Klaus (ks) gave me his mod, thanks a LOT for Klaus, for trying. An example is here (not finnished yet):
http://www.sinusfoto.ch/cpg132/search.php

Third section, is something I call "Alphabetic keyword-search". I have discovered, that this search likes specialy older people, maybe because it is search like the phone book, and they did such searches the whole life.
In fact it is something like an "easy keyword-search". An example we can see here (only the idea), on the left side, the ABC-index (this here is generated in fact by IMatch (www.photools.com).

And finally, as a options in all three section should be something like a "checkbox-choice" in what for albums and what for fields (default all) this search should be performend, then I am sure, quite a lot of people (though not all) would be very happy.

I think, wen we could have a serach- page with such three options (maybe expandable), with a clever design, than we would have a very good search-page for the most of our surfers.

I wrote this only, because I have not found something like this and because this could give you, who does create cpg, maybe also one more idea.

Sorry for my bad English and please take this only as an idea, seen from a user point of view Rremember, a lot of our visitors does not know our cpg-album very well, and when they want search, we should offer them esay possibilities by a clever design. As we can see here on the forum: some like a keywordlist by dropdown, some as a list, some likes a search-box and so on....

And allow me to add this: when I see my father look at the screen and try to type searches to find his childs, and he can allmost not typing, then he will be pleased to find an easy ABC-Search, because the dropdown-list is to long for him and to small to navigate, the dropdown-list is to irritating for him (so many words) and he will choose the "phonebook-like - search".

So I think, we should generate a possibility for all our possible visitors.

Thanks for listening
Markus

[Joachim Müller]

The problem is not the user interface of the search page, but the limitations of mySQL search that is being used with coppermine search.php. Conclusion: yes - search could/should be improved, but at the moment, it's not top priority. There are in fact improvements in the devel pipeline that will make the search easier - they are in the devel version cpg1.4.
So your request is valid, but I doubt your suggestions will go into cpg1.4; maybe a future version though.

Joachim

[sinus]

The problem is not the user interface of the search page, but the limitations of mySQL search that is being used with coppermine search.php. Conclusion: yes - search could/should be improved, but at the moment, it's not top priority. There are in fact improvements in the devel pipeline that will make the search easier - they are in the devel version cpg1.4.
So your request is valid, but I doubt your suggestions will go into cpg1.4; maybe a future version though.

Joachim

Hi Joachim,
Thanks for this answer, finally you have read such a long post.
Your answer for me personally is a good answer, it gives me hope for the future. Yes, I believe, that the dev - team has other priorities, like for example "put one image into several Cats/Albums"  - I hope
Thanks and good wishes from Switzerland
Markus