I think Nant and Beat have stated previously that no less than 3 different people are building this functionality into a plug in.

Some features weren't implememented because the team concentrated on getting an API out so other developers and open sorcerors could share some of the responsibility of improving CB.

So, I imagine that in some time, we'll have an extended search feature!

glad we have calmed down a bit.

Yes, I have seen various references to plugins, and look forward to trying them out. Unfortuntately, I am not a software developer but I do work a lot with the development of projects, how teams work together etc.

I can also see that there is great merit in putting software out in the open source field for others to develop and modify, which is the meaning of Open Source.

BUT I am still amazed that such a vital piece of functionality (ie, the wheels) was missed out in the first place, leaving literally hundreds of users equally amazed and scratching their heads.

Why is it called Advanced Search? Other Mambo/Joomla software and plugins just call it 'searching'... and there are hundreds of very ordinary pieces of software out there (Remository, Zoom, Bookmarks, Ext Calendar to name just a few which I use a lot) which all have 'searching' in them.

It is not Advanced Search, it is just Search!

Advanced Search would be to take basic search results of all avavailable fields, and be able to sort them, search on searches already made, store searches as queries for later re-use).

I am still puzzled, why the original software was put out without such a basic functionality in it?

Maybe there is no answer now, but my Software Development side wonders about this.

If I was a software writer, I would be the first to try and help develop something that is sorely missed in this great software. I can't, so instead I ask questions about how things are developed, missed, and what happens to make good.


achintya


dsendecki wrote:

I think Nant and Beat have stated previously that no less than 3 different people are building this functionality into a plug in.

Some features weren't implememented because the team concentrated on getting an API out so other developers and open sorcerors could share some of the responsibility of improving CB.

So, I imagine that in some time, we'll have an extended search feature!

Well, there are a few things that you need to understand. Once you understand these three points, it propably makes sense why there is not decent search functionality yet in the core.

1) The CB team seems to prefer stability over features. If you look at developer.joomla.org, you see that there were more than 30 bugs in the latest release. It is a solid practice to fix the bugs first and then focus on the features. (if you do not do this, you will end up with products like MS Windows that need a lot of support)

2) At the time of RC1 the team saw that there were a lot of people who wanted to contribute features. Thus they decided to make a plugib API to allow more people to develop the software. This, at least to me, seems like rational choice.

3) Search can be done as a hack, plugin or external component. The reason why it has not emerged yet is that the people who code, do it either for fun (1), for their own needs (2) or for money (3).

I have been reading the forums since the release of RC1 and have this far not seen that much money(3) being offered. What comes to fun, programming smaller things is much for fun(1) than starting to make larger things than searches, sepecially since there are hacks for this. And what comes to needs(2) for search, it seems that it is not that much of a needed feature after all. I have a custom backend search and email on one of my sites, coded by myself, and that is all the search I will ever need.

Do you have any suggestions how the process of getting the search could be made faster? Should people quit their jobs, private life or sleeping? Or should they release code with bugs?

You are mentioning important points and as a long term user of CB in Mambo/Joomla I think I do understand them. But you are not addressing my central points;

a. Why release ANY database software which only allows searching on just one of the core fields in that database, ie name? This is, to my mind, like producing a car without wheels?

b. Why design software which also allows users to introduce new fields into the database then not include them in the search either? That is like producing a car with an extra gear no-one can actually go into?

Driving a car is all about going from A to B at a speed faster than walking. In the same way using a registered users database is all about being able to efficiently record registered user data and then allow others to query that data and connect with other registered users, using that data.

Or am I missing something here?

To my mind a piece of software is designed to serve the needs of users, not just the needs of developers, and I think ALL of the users so far using CB in my mambo and joomla sites have requested the ability to search ALL fields, as most other Mambo/Joomla software offer. The ommission sticks out like a sore thumb against other standard/core Mambo/Joomla components offering brilliant search utilities as part of their service to users.

As I said, these forums are also full of such requests from people using CB. Quite a lot say they won't implement CB until there is a proper search feature. The forums are full of requests for the search feature, but they are ignored each time a 'release' happens.

It all seems to be quite software development orientated rather than user orientated, which is a mistake Microsoft make all the time.

The functionality of this particular piece of software is to allow users to register using a range of core and additional fields, that is one aspect, but it doesn't stop there.

Once someone has registered and there are 300 users registered with CB, then this information is core data to the other 299 users who need to be able to find that person via the various core and additional fields.

What is the point of letting someone register, and filling in all these core and additional fields, if no-one else can search for them by those criteria?

I get your point about 'hacked' additions but as you know, this is tricky business, if you do serious mods to core files which are not part of the release code, then when there is an upgrade those hacks will be overwritten, or even worse may no longer work.

If 300 people have become accustomed to using a 'hacked' or 'extended' version of CB they will be pretty miffed if that functionality suddenly disappears.

I haven't yet seen a plugin or external component which works on CB without a core hack; where are they and what are their names? If you mean CB Extended, all the files have disappeared from the mambome site. It is empty.

What is needed is a core code change which responds to what is to my mind a pretty basic User requirement; how to find other Users by searching on the fields they have completed when registering.

I am looking at this from a USER point of view, not a developer point of view and would appreciate your comments/understanding of this situation from a User point of view - addressing the above points?


achintya


mikko wrote:

Well, there are a few things that you need to understand. Once you understand these three points, it propably makes sense why there is not decent search functionality yet in the core.

1) The CB team seems to prefer stability over features. If you look at developer.joomla.org, you see that there were more than 30 bugs in the latest release. It is a solid practice to fix the bugs first and then focus on the features. (if you do not do this, you will end up with products like MS Windows that need a lot of support)

2) At the time of RC1 the team saw that there were a lot of people who wanted to contribute features. Thus they decided to make a plugib API to allow more people to develop the software. This, at least to me, seems like rational choice.

3) Search can be done as a hack, plugin or external component. The reason why it has not emerged yet is that the people who code, do it either for fun (1), for their own needs (2) or for money (3).

I have been reading the forums since the release of RC1 and have this far not seen that much money(3) being offered. What comes to fun, programming smaller things is much for fun(1) than starting to make larger things than searches, sepecially since there are hacks for this. And what comes to needs(2) for search, it seems that it is not that much of a needed feature after all. I have a custom backend search and email on one of my sites, coded by myself, and that is all the search I will ever need.

Do you have any suggestions how the process of getting the search could be made faster? Should people quit their jobs, private life or sleeping? Or should they release code with bugs?

hi

well, search feature is not the MAIN feature of CB.
It's not even a key feature either.
Its main feature is to build a profile page.

There are many components that deals with userlist.
"We" have to take them as a basis for a component taht will use dynamically the CB fields.

i'm thinking about "Userlist Extended", which was improved for CB during CB beta 4, but not been updated since then.

Are you SURE that search is not a feature?

from the User point of view it really is? Surely that is what other registered users actually want to be able to do - find and connect with other users? I see that as a much needed key feature for sure. Profile pages are not dead objects, they need to be dynamically available and searchable to be of any use, if there are 300 users, they are not going to scroll through pages of names or know the names of people who are there. They want to be able to search by region, interest, focus area, etc etc.

I have tried User list and it looks horrible, nowhere near as good as CB in terms of use of CSS etc. The search functions in User List are really clunky.

We just need a general search by all fields in CB that is built into its own CSS system.

I really like the look of CB and it is nicely configurable, User List extended does not offer any of those features.

It also seems retro to force people to click on another piece of software and move backwards and forwards between them when doing searches. User LIst extended presents the CB data to some extent, but incorporates its own field system, CB users need to be imported in, as far as I know?

hope you have a better day today?


achintya


silexian wrote:

hi

well, search feature is not the MAIN feature of CB.
It's not even a key feature either.
Its main feature is to build a profile page.

There are many components that deals with userlist.
"We" have to take them as a basis for a component taht will use dynamically the CB fields.

i'm thinking about "Userlist Extended", which was improved for CB during CB beta 4, but not been updated since then.