And the winner is... Search!

So I took it upon myself to decide that there was a clear winner in the poll for the next great feature for Channel9. Search was actually something that should have been free for us, but somewhere along the line, we broke it. In our infinite wisdom and desire to push this site out quickly we all exclaimed "who needs search on a brand new site?" and shipped the site without it. Well, let me just say that I feel your pain, the site hasn't been nearly usable without it, and I was so excited for you guys to get it that I started digging into the code to figure out what was wrong yesterday. Turns out, it was a pretty easy fix, so I implemented a couple of code changes, merged advanced search together with search, and plopped the whole package in our template.

Now you should be seeing a search link in the topmost navigation list. Give it a try.

For future work, we're going to look into integrating Wiki search results in with the forums results, and I'd also like to throw in a search RSS link so you can keep track of your searches.

Speaking of which, integrating the wiki results in won't actually be that difficult, except that it's hard to figure out how to integrate the results. If the results were inline with the forums results, what order would the whole mess be in? If there were seperate sections for wiki results, how would the paging feature work. Anyway, we'll figure it out one way or another, I just though I'd give you guys a chance to chime in with your ideas.

enjoy!
-Bryn

Nice job Bryn! Thanks!

Hey Bryn,

I actually caught Lenn minutes after this went up. My first results were "wow". It's a very, very good implementation of search for a community. I half expected to find it in the orange bar (the only place I click), but it makes sense in the top nav.

The results were clear, consistent, easy to follow... I liked the higlighting as well.

Sadly, my first thought was "damn, no RSS", but (as I told Lenn) that's mainly because I've gotten so used to you guys being responsive, and the quality of the site being top notch.

I'm not sure anyone's really said this, but this is one of the best site launches I've seen, and I've "presided" over hundreds. You guys did a really great job with the look, feel, technology and with some of the more granular aspects like making it easy for nearly 4000 people to join up in just a couple of weeks.

Grab a beer, raise a glass and enjoy it, it's awesome work.

I'll post some of my thoughts later, but I just wanted to say thanks and congrats. Work well done!

Thanks alot man - seems to work like a charm

Great!

Still, you get extra points for extra usability: add a search box on the 'no results' page...

Is there a 3 chars minimum?

Bryn, was much needed feature.
Thanks for your efforts.

Tejas Patel

Can I ask what you are using as the Search technology? Sharepoint or SQL?

hey just a quick - maybe possible search feature...?

i typed jamie  and i typed lars and i typed sbc..

cool - all our topics or posts or replies..come up

how bout -

Who you are - at the top

then -line - all posts..

so it would have for example:

LARS - who you are  - then line - then all posts.

if info isnt in profile - search "Tell us who you are thread" - or if theres nothing there - post - "No info submtted - find out how to submit your info!"

something like that

to bring you this special report....

On Groklaw.net

http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=20040420190354910

S2 Objects to Subpoena, Admits It Met With Microsoft

Know why Microsoft is settling a lot of litigation lately?

They need to gather all their legal guns for a big fight.

I smell an IBM vs Microsoft behemouth legal slugfest. Shock and awe, baby!

I didn't know what the other things were so I voted for search.

Dang I wish I wrote this thing myself. Impressive as it is, I did not. The search that you guys are using is one of the built in features of the ASP.Net Forums, I think it's been there since 1.0, and I think they're working on an even better version for 2.0. I believe it was written by Rob Howard himself, although I don't have any proof.

Anyway, since you asked, I dug, and I wrote what I found over in the Wiki under SearchImplementation.

Also, if you're interested, there is a GotDotNet workspace for the ASP.NET forums which you should check out.

Cool, thanks for replying Bryn. I guess the MS Search folks were busy when you called ?