Show HN: Pythondocs.xyz – Live search for Python documentation • Hacker News Board

Show HN: Pythondocs.xyz – Live search for Python documentation

#1

Post by danosull » Mon, May 09, 2022, 6:27 PM UTC

Hi everyone!

I've been working on a web search interface for Python's documentation as a personal project, and I think it's ready for other people to use...

Please give it a go (and join me in praying to the server gods):

https://pythondocs.xyz/

Here's the tech stack for those interested:

- Parser: Beautiful Soup + Mozilla Bleach

- Database: in-memory SQLite (aiosqlite) + SQLAlchemy

- Web server: FastAPI + Uvicorn + Jinja2

- Front end: Tailwind CSS + htmx + Alpine.js

I have ideas for future improvements but hopefully the current version is useful to someone.

Let me know what you think!

Show HN: Pythondocs.xyz – Live search for Python documentation
pythondocs.xyz

Re: Show HN: Pythondocs.xyz – Live search for Python documentation

#2

Post by [deleted] » Mon, May 09, 2022, 6:27 PM UTC

[deleted]

Re: Show HN: Pythondocs.xyz – Live search for Python documentation

#3

Post by clircle » Mon, May 09, 2022, 7:06 PM UTC

Does python not have built in documentation search? In R I use `??searchterm`.

Re: Show HN: Pythondocs.xyz – Live search for Python documentation

#4

Post by ystad » Mon, May 09, 2022, 7:24 PM UTC

Looks really nice!.

Feature-request: Would love auto-suggest as I type. one of my favorite example(s) is Algolia's doc search https://www.algolia.com/doc/

Re: Show HN: Pythondocs.xyz – Live search for Python documentation

#5

Post by danosull » Mon, May 09, 2022, 7:27 PM UTC

ystad wrote: post #4

Looks really nice!. Feature-request: Would love auto-suggest as I type. one of my favorite example(s) is Algolia's doc search https://www.algolia.com/doc/

Thank you!

And great feature suggestion. I'll put it on the list.

Re: Show HN: Pythondocs.xyz – Live search for Python documentation

#6

Post by azeirah » Mon, May 09, 2022, 7:45 PM UTC

clircle wrote: post #3

Does python not have built in documentation search? In R I use `??searchterm`.

It has help(), but I don't think there's a nice search feature included.

I mean you could use string methods to search for something of course, help just returns a string.

Then again, it's Python. There's probably some kind of

    import search from helpTools

Or something among those lines, because... it always has this kind of stuff

Re: Show HN: Pythondocs.xyz – Live search for Python documentation

#7

Post by drcongo » Mon, May 09, 2022, 7:55 PM UTC

Small feedback: I tried `Iterable` as the search term and there's no mention of `typing.Iterable` on the first page - case sensitivity may help?

Re: Show HN: Pythondocs.xyz – Live search for Python documentation

#8

Post by thealistra » Mon, May 09, 2022, 8:39 PM UTC

I tried "typeof" and "is" and results were not what I wanted.

Is there indexing for language keywords?

Re: Show HN: Pythondocs.xyz – Live search for Python documentation

#9

Post by danosull » Mon, May 09, 2022, 9:05 PM UTC

drcongo wrote: post #7

Small feedback: I tried `Iterable` as the search term and there's no mention of `typing.Iterable` on the first page - case sensitivity may help?

Very useful feedback, thank you.

The ordering of search results is currently very crude - it's basically just alphabetical. I plan to add "order by relevance" in the future, and I'll definitely bear capitalisation in mind.

Re: Show HN: Pythondocs.xyz – Live search for Python documentation

#10

Post by danosull » Mon, May 09, 2022, 9:10 PM UTC

thealistra wrote: post #8

I tried "typeof" and "is" and results were not what I wanted. Is there indexing for language keywords?

Not right now, although it's something I'm interested in adding!

You can get usually get quite good results by selecting Standard Library and Definitions, though.

"is" is a special case as I currently enforce a 3 character minimum to keep the number of live search results sane.