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Multingual search?

Posted by ricks99 on Wed 20 of Feb, 2008 11:58 GMT United States
Any thoughts of how to handle multiple languages when searching? I envision several use cases:

Ability to filter

I would like the ability to filter my search results by language (in much the same way that Tiki currently allows you to filter search results by wiki pages, forum, blog etc.

I would also like the ability to select a language (or all) when performing the initial search. Mabye another dropbox for language in the search box?


On the search results page, I would like a way (maybe using the existing multilanguage dropbox?) to quickly jump to a language-specific result.

This would essentially let users search in multiple languages, at once.



Group similar pages

If a search term appears in a translated page, I would like to see the results page show the translation group together (then let me choose a language). Currently Tiki shows these as two separate results.


... just some ideas
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Posted by alain_desilets on Wed 20 of Feb, 2008 13:50 GMT
> Any thoughts of how to handle multiple languages when searching? I envision several use cases:

Hi Rick,

Thx for posting those ideas. I'd like to probe more into what you have in mind.

Can you tell me a detailed story in which a particular person uses the system you have in mind? Who is this person, why is she using a multilingual TikiWiki, and what goal is she trying to reach when using multilingual search features. What specific actions does she do with the system in order to achieve those goals?

The story can be a real person (including you), but it can also be completely made up, as long as it has a plausible character and plot.

Alain Désilets
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Posted by ricks99 on Wed 20 of Feb, 2008 15:11 GMT United States
>
> Can you tell me a detailed story in which a particular person uses the system you have in mind?
Hi Alain:

First, thanks for the work you and everyone else on wiki-translation.com is doing. I can't wait for 1.10.. :-)

These use cases are based on my real-world multilingual Tiki: (http://twbasics.keycontent.org).

Please note that I am an English/USA native speaker, so take these use cases with a grain of salt....



Weighting by language

Assummption: Searching for copyright results in this results page:
http://twbasics.keycontent.org/tiki-searchindex.php?words=copyright&where=wikis&search=go

Since the site's default language is English, the English results should be shown first (for example, Welcome should rank before Bienvenido.
However:
  • If my browser's language was detected as Spanish, then the Spanish results should be first.
  • If I explictly selected my interface language as German (or my user default was set), then the German page (Willkommen) should be shown first.




Filter

Assummption: Searching for copyright results in this results page:
http://twbasics.keycontent.org/tiki-searchindex.php?words=copyright&where=wikis&search=go.
I see 3 pages in 3 languages (for a total of 8 hits).
  1. Welcome (Bienvendo, Willkommen)
  2. Contributors (Colabadores, Mitwirkende)
  3. Parts of Tiki (Partes de Tiki)

As an English-only speaker, I want the ability to fiter the search results by language; there's no need to show me the Bienvendio hit if I can't speak Spanish.

What I really would like to see:
  • Buttons that say:
    • English pages only: Would show only Welcome, Contributors, and Parts of Tiki.
    • Spanish pages only: Would show only Bienvendio, Colabadores, and Partes de Tiki.
    • German pages only: Would show only Willkommen and Mitwirkende.

In addition to showing the number of hits, the search results page should show:
  • Number of hits for the filtered language.
  • Number of hits that are not shown (that is, they are in other langauges that I have filtered).

When filtering languages, the search results page should provide me with an easy way to read the non-displayed laugage page (as illustrated in the following Direct Links use case)


Assummption: Searching for author results in this results page:
http://twbasics.keycontent.org/tiki-searchindex.php?words=author&where=wikis&search=go.

Even though the page Sobre o Autor does not contain the text "author" it is a direct translation of the About the Author page. The search results should reflect this; it should be treated as a "hit."

I would like to see, on the search results page, the hit for About the Author include a drop box that shows users there are translations of that page available in Portuguese and Spanish

This could/should work in tadem with the above use cases. If my interface language were Portuguse, searching for author should show the Sobre o Autor page (with a droplist that shows the English and Spanish pages).



Do these make sense?
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Posted by Seb (not registered) on Fri 22 of Feb, 2008 17:52 GMT

For a logged-in user, it would make sense to use the preferred language options they have specified to inform search.

The browser's language setting could also be useful.
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