Ask HN: What do you need in HN search? • Hacker News Board

Re: Ask HN: What do you need in HN search?

#11

Post by blablabla123 » Mon, Jan 12, 2015, 5:34 PM UTC

Would be cool if it crawled the search terms of the target link. Often I try to find some HN post but I have problems thinking of the words in it.

Re: Ask HN: What do you need in HN search?

#12

Post by redox_ » Mon, Jan 12, 2015, 5:34 PM UTC

boundlessdreamz wrote: post #8

1. A more powerful time filter would be very useful (Last week, last month, last year, custom range where dates can be picked). Without this search is not very useful to me at the moment. So I use Google to search HN since they do offer a filter 2. Points filter and comments filter would also be great (> 10 points and/or > 5 comments). I get lot of results which have no activity

1. Makes sense, good point!

2. Yes, there is actually a trick in the query syntax: if you use "points>10" you'll get all posts that have more than 10 points. I'll plug the filter on the number of comments as well (like comments>X). Do you think we should rather have sliders?

Re: Ask HN: What do you need in HN search?

#13

Post by jrsmitchell » Mon, Jan 12, 2015, 5:36 PM UTC

I like the additional filtering in the experimental interface, for example to switch between "All" and "Hot". I could see that being quite useful. Though the experimental page has too much whitespace for my liking - I can see 5-6 stories on a page vs. 10 or so on the HN style page.

It would be great if it saved my preferences (Sort by, date range) since I usually end up flipping those values to the same thing.

One minor annoyance is "JavaScript" being picked up when I search for "java". Would be nice to have the option to search for whole words.

A very minor annoyance is usernames are treated the same as text in stories. If I search for 'IBM' for example, I'll get all stories submitted by user 'IBM'.

Re: Ask HN: What do you need in HN search?

#14

Post by redox_ » Mon, Jan 12, 2015, 5:36 PM UTC

[deleted] wrote: post #7

[deleted]

Clickable with the experimental UI: https://new-hn.algolia.com/?experimental

Re: Ask HN: What do you need in HN search?

#15

Post by clarkm » Mon, Jan 12, 2015, 5:37 PM UTC

Custom date ranges with a calendar picker!

Re: Ask HN: What do you need in HN search?

#16

Post by redox_ » Mon, Jan 12, 2015, 5:38 PM UTC

jrsmitchell wrote: post #13

I like the additional filtering in the experimental interface, for example to switch between "All" and "Hot". I could see that being quite useful. Though the experimental page has too much whitespace for my liking - I can see 5-6 stories on a page vs. 10 or so on the HN style page. It would be great if it saved my preferences (Sort by, date range) since I usually end up flipping those values to the same thing. One mi…

Yes "prefixed" search is enabled by default as-you-type. Just press "Enter", it will disable it. Being able to totally remove the "prefixed" search makes sense however.

Re: Ask HN: What do you need in HN search?

#17

Post by boundlessdreamz » Mon, Jan 12, 2015, 5:41 PM UTC

redox_ wrote: post #12

boundlessdreamz wrote: post #8

1. A more powerful time filter would be very useful (Last week, last month, last year, custom range where dates can be picked). Without this search is not very useful to me at the moment. So I use Google to search HN since they do offer a filter 2. Points filter and comments filter would also be great (> 10 points and/or > 5 comments). I get lot of results which have no activity

1. Makes sense, good point! 2. Yes, there is actually a trick in the query syntax: if you use "points>10" you'll get all posts that have more than 10 points. I'll plug the filter on the number of comments as well (like comments>X). Do you think we should rather have sliders?

Sliders will probably make the UI a bit busy in the current version. If the syntax is easy, just linking to the syntax should be sufficient.

In your experimental UI, the sidebar can expose all these filters without cluttering up the main UI

Re: Ask HN: What do you need in HN search?

#18

Post by redox_ » Mon, Jan 12, 2015, 5:42 PM UTC

steveklabnik wrote: post #9

I _always_ immediately turn the settings to "All" and "sort by date"

Oh btw, your post is highlighted in our blog post Steve :) http://blog.algolia.com/try-new-experimental-version-hn-sear...

Re: Ask HN: What do you need in HN search?

#19

Post by steveklabnik » Mon, Jan 12, 2015, 5:43 PM UTC

redox_ wrote: post #18

steveklabnik wrote: post #9

I _always_ immediately turn the settings to "All" and "sort by date"

Oh btw, your post is highlighted in our blog post Steve :) http://blog.algolia.com/try-new-experimental-version-hn-sear...

Ha, neat! :)

Re: Ask HN: What do you need in HN search?

#20

Post by faizshah » Mon, Jan 12, 2015, 5:51 PM UTC

boundlessdreamz wrote: post #8

1. A more powerful time filter would be very useful (Last week, last month, last year, custom range where dates can be picked). Without this search is not very useful to me at the moment. So I use Google to search HN since they do offer a filter 2. Points filter and comments filter would also be great (> 10 points and/or > 5 comments). I get lot of results which have no activity

I agree, my biggest annoyance with HN search by far is the time filter. If I am looking for a post I saw a few weeks ago I have to search through a years worth of posts with my keywords in it (if it's between a year and a month ago).

I think a good feature to add to HN Search would be some kind of clustering of the same link. So if a link has been reposted many times you can see all the discussions of it in one result.