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The Atom API docs search is REALLY terrible #93

Closed TPXP closed 7 years ago

TPXP commented 7 years ago

Hey there !

I'm a beginner in Atom hacking and, as I tried to fix a package I found pretty cool, I had a great time with searching the Atom docs ! :book:

I'm not here to tell you about why, when and how it broke. I prefer telling you about my searching experience, and here is my point : The API docs' search engine is REALLY terrible, and seems to return results randomly. Here is an example to show you my point : search for softwrapping-related commands.

Besides this being absolutely illogical, it makes it a real nightmare for developpers to create packages, as looking for API commands reveals itself either broken, either harder as it requires them to go through the list of objects, find the corresponding one, and go through that endless list of commands... For sure, Ctrl+F does the trick, but still, what could be done in 10 seconds ends up in taking 2 minutes if not more yay ! As an Atom.io hacker beginner, I swear that this is extremely discouraging, especially when you're looking for a way to achieve something.

Please consider implementing another search system. As we now have extremely powerful free search tools (like ElasticSearch), it is a shame that 21st-century-ready editor uses a middle-age search engine !

jasonrudolph commented 7 years ago

Please consider implementing another search system. As we now have extremely powerful free search tools (like ElasticSearch), it is a shame that 21st-century-ready editor uses a middle-age search engine !

We're already using Elasticsearch :innocent:, but perhaps there are opportunities to tune it to provide a better experience. Thanks for sharing these examples:

Here is an example to show you my point : search for softwrapping-related commands.

  • use soft : Approximately 10 results, some of them contain softwrap.
  • use softwrap : No results :exclamation:

In this specific case, I think the issue has to do with the fact that Atom treats "soft wrap" as two words, not one. If you search for soft wrap or soft-wrap, you'll see a full page of results.

To help us better understand how we might be able to improve the search experience, do you recall any other examples where the search experience was frustrating for you?

jasonrudolph commented 7 years ago

To help us better understand how we might be able to improve the search experience, do you recall any other examples where the search experience was frustrating for you?

I think https://github.com/atom/atom.io/issues/93#issuecomment-293959656 explains the specific example you shared. In order for us to improve the search experience, we'll likely need a few more examples of places where the current search experience is failing to meet expectations. I don't think we'll be able to act on this issue until we have a few more examples to work with, so I'm going to close this issue for now. However, if you identify additional examples, please post a follow-up comment here so we can look into this. :pray:

TPXP commented 7 years ago

Thank you for your explanation. I guess the search is only looking to descriptions as soft wrap returns results while softwrap doesn't. Maybe the search should also look for results in the name of the function, not only its description ? Currently, it seems that typing the exact function name works : getSoftWrapColumn is fine, but softwrap is not.