69952 - Bugzilla searching is terrible!

Status: RESOLVED DUPLICATE of bug 16775

(Bugzilla :: Bugzilla-General, defect)

Description

[gnu]

I reported bug #69951 just now, because even though it was an utterly
obvious problem with installation, I couldn't find any bugs in the
database already that matched it.

That's partly because when I clicked "Search Bugs", it presented me with
a huge three-screenfulls of checkboxes and text boxes, most of which made
zero sense.  By scrolling way down toward the bottom, I found a field
in which I could type "install " or "unpack" and hit Search, but I never
found any bugs that matched those words, so I gave up and went off to spend
half an hour reporting the problem.

Have you considered offering a "Google-like" search engine, that will
just let me type a few words into a single text box?  Because a hell of a 
lot more users would locate existing bugs if you did.

Comment 1

[Dave Miller [:justdave]]

The fact that I have to mark this as a duplicate only proves your point. :-)
But yes, it's being worked on.  Please give your input to the ideas in bug 16775.


*** This bug has been marked as a duplicate of 16775 ***

Comment 2

[Andreas Franke (gone)]

Please also have a look at the following RFEs:
Bug 65929 [meta] "Make it easier to find bugs in Bugzilla"
(with http://bugzilla.mozilla.org/showdependencytree.cgi?id=65929 )
Bug 65931 [meta] "Improve Bugzilla query forms"
Bug 61561 "Integrate simple search into bugzilla front page"
Bug 33067 "want something like Altavista for bugzilla search"

I am the main author of the QuickSearch tool described in bug 61561, and
comments on usability problems and suggestions for improvement are always
welcome. Currently you can find the tool at
http://www.ags.uni-sb.de/~afranke/mozilla/quicksearch.html

This _is_ an attempt to build a "Google-like" search engine, so I'd consider
this bug a duplicate of bug 61561 rather than bug 16775.

There are rumours that endico is planning to put the QuickSearch tool on the
bugzilla front page in the hopefully not too distant future.

An alternative existing "Simple Search" tool is located at
http://www.mozilla.org/quality/help/simplesearch.html
That tool is a bit simpler than the QuickSearch since it is focused on summary
and description/comments search only.

See also bug 69793 "check in new files for QuickSearch".

If you know perl or javascript, it would be really great if you could help
improving the QuickSearch tool. I'm even looking for someone to take over
maintenance and development.

Comment 3

[Dave Miller [:justdave]]

moving to Bugzilla product
reassign to default owner/qa for INVALID/WONTFIX/WORKSFORME/DUPLICATE