Full page search does not search users or categories like on-page search does

[alefattorini (Alessio Fattorini)]

It’s impossibile to search a user with the new full search on mobile, you can scroll down for a while with any results.
Otherwise with the old search box, after 3/4 results users are suggested.

[codinghorror (Jeff Atwood)]

This is a dupe of another post in the new search feedback topic. But yes full page search does not currently match categories or users like the pop up search does.

[alefattorini (Alessio Fattorini)]

Sorry I missed it, I looked for a topic.

[codinghorror (Jeff Atwood)]

Totally fine, we probably should have a topic to track this anyway. I just wanted to let you know we were already aware of it.

[pfaffman (Jay Pfaffman)]

This could be mitigated somewhat if the pop-up search could still work on the search page. I have to switch to a different tab to find a username to enter in the the search box.

[charleswalter]

I think this was the topic where we had some discussion on this.

Search usability and data

Is there a way to get any info on how users are using search? What they are searching for? We have a lot of categories, so I thought the search would be used almost as a way of global navigation. I think the ability to search in topic by default should be a community option. Most users may prefer using it as a way to jump around the larger community. But it’s hard to make the right suggestions without the data.

BTW, I just realized that the default text on the full page search even says,
“search topics, posts, users or categories”

[mcwumbly (Dave McClure)]

I watched a new user struggle with this the other day. I told her a person/user to search for in response to a question she had. She typed the name in the popup search and intuitively hit ‘enter’ very quickly before the pop-up results were returned.

I said, “hmm… guess users aren’t returned on this page…try that again, but don’t hit enter right away”.

Then, when she clicked on the search icon again, the cursor just went to the main search box… which was unexpected (as @pfaffman notes above).

I had to guide her to go back to the home page, then click the search icon, type the user name, but do not click enter immediately, and voila, the user we wanted to find was right there…

[jomaxro (Joshua Rosenfeld)]

I’ve run into this before as well. Not too frequently, as I tend to just type /users/username directly into the URL bar, but it is certainly surprising when you want to search for a category and find out you can’t on full page!

[codinghorror (Jeff Atwood)]

@mcwumbly

Then, when she clicked on the search icon again, the cursor just went to the main search box… which was unexpected

@sam you really should revert this behavior, unless on mobile…

[sam (Sam Saffron)]

@codinghorror

@sam you really should revert this behavior, unless on mobile…

Yes I agree, this is not consistent with what imdb does, will revert, but I really feel the big issue at hand is:

@mcwumbly

I said, “hmm… guess users aren’t returned on this page…try that again, but don’t hit enter right away”.

I got to get users and categories in the full page search … will set aside some time for that … currently there is no way to search for users on mobile.

[sam (Sam Saffron)]

The revert is now done:

https://github.com/discourse/discourse/commit/665a87a32ffa391f39905908521e7ec91bdbd24c