WebHelp Search does not find any non-letter characters

[MichaelDa]

Hi. I noticed the following topic related to searching angle brackets: http://www.oxygenxml.com/forum/topic9878.html

I wanted to add that we have had a number of queries from our users regarding searching character strings that contain non-letter characters. This is most common with strings of code or command lines, or with file names.

For example, in the following document:

http://documentation.agilepoint.com/Sup ... index.html

If you search the file name Ascentn.AgilePart.Scripting.dll, or even the partial file name Scripting.dll, the search string is not found.

However, if you search the partial file name Scripting with no periods, the file name is found.

Same is true with other strings in the document, such as [path] vs path; -allowgacdeployment vs allowgacdeployment; and so on.

Would it be possible to provide a fix for this issue?

Thanks.

[pault]

This is also true for parenthesis, such as note().

[MichaelDa]

For clarity, it should be "non-alphanumeric characters". It can find numbers, as well as letters. Just not spaces, punctuation, or special characters.

[sorin_ristache]

Hello,

That post refers to non-alphanumeric characters in the title of a search result, as displayed under the title Results for: [user query here], not to non-alphanumeric characters in the search query (entered by the user in the Search text box). Currently non-alphanumeric characters are not supported in the search query and they are stripped from the search string entered by the user before running the query on the Webhelp page content.

We will consider enhancing the Webhelp search engine in a future version to support also non-alphanumeric characters in the search query.


Regards,
Sorin

[MichaelDa]

Hi Sorin.

Thank you for your response. It would be good if at least there were a helpful message that told users why their search string isn't found -- something like, "You're search string includes non-alphanumeric characters, which are not supported by this search tool. Please try your search again using only alphanumeric characters."

The issue is that people try a search, and it simply says "not found". Therefore, they give up because they think the information they're looking for is not present in the documentation. Then they call our Customer Support. It becomes an unnecessary company expense that could be resolved through documentation.

Thanks,
Michael

[sorin_ristache]

Hi Michael,

We will try to improve the message that is displayed after executing the search in the Webhelp pages and also we will specify in the Oxygen User Manual how non-alphanumeric characters are handled by the search.


Regards,
Sorin

[sorin_ristache]

Hi,

If you search the file name Ascentn.AgilePart.Scripting.dll, or even the partial file name Scripting.dll, the search string is not found.

However, if you search the partial file name Scripting with no periods, the file name is found.

Same is true with other strings in the document, such as [path] vs path; -allowgacdeployment vs allowgacdeployment; and so on.

Would it be possible to provide a fix for this issue?

I should mention that some non-alphanumeric characters are already supported starting with version 15.0: '.', ':', '-' and '_'. This is an improvement added by Oxygen version 15.0. For example if you run the Webhelp transformation in Oxygen 15.0 the search will find and highlight correctly the string Ascentn.AgilePart.Scripting.dll and also any substring that starts at the beginning of this string plus the single words separated by dot: Ascentn, Ascentn.AgilePart, Ascentn.AgilePart.Scripting, AgilePart, Scripting, dll. The same is true for strings of alphanumeric characters separated by ':', '-' and '_', for example: substr1:substr2, substr1, substr2, substr3-substr4, substr3, substr4, substr5_substr6, substr5, substr6, etc.

This improvement is already specified in the User Manual for both the DITA Webhelp transformation and the Docbook Webhelp one.


Regards,
Sorin

[MichaelDa]

Thanks Sorin. This is helpful.

- If you can add support for parentenses, brackets and braces ()[]{}, etc -- or at least the error message I mentioned for those characters -- that would be great.

- I have asked this before, but maybe it has been added: Is there a Release Notes document somewhere that would help us keep track of these changes?

Thanks,
Michael

[sorin_ristache]

- If you can add support for parentenses, brackets and braces ()[]{}, etc -- or at least the error message I mentioned for those characters -- that would be great.

We will consider adding support also for these other non-alphanumeric characters but I cannot commit on a definite future date or future version of Oxygen.

- I have asked this before, but maybe it has been added: Is there a Release Notes document somewhere that would help us keep track of these changes?

The list of new features added by each version is available on the home page (the What's New section, for the current version only) and on the History page. Also there is a list of bugfixes that go in each maintenance build. You can keep track of new features and bugfixes by subscribing to our RSS feed.


Regards,
Sorin