[Synaptic-devel] Search features and help for searching

[Vesa Paatero]

Dear Synaptic developers,

At first I was going to give feedback that an advanced searching feature 
by pattern or regexp would be good... but then, after making some tests, 
I noticed that there already exists some good functionality but those 
possibilities are not presented to users.

I think the most important type of "advanced search" is searching with 
two words. Like, if you are searching for desktop publishing software, 
you might try   "layout AND publish". It seems that the "AND" word is 
not needed--yet in the Quick Search, it seems that the words must be in 
the same order as in the results.
    Another type of advanced search that may be needed is a fixed 
string longer than one word, such as "layout manager". It seems that 
this type of search is not currently supported.

The most practical way of documenting the search facility I can think of 
would be to provide some quick-help button for searching that is located 
close to the search button. It could be a small pop-up that lists the 
principal search approaches with a single example of each.

(Those help pages may work handily in some systems if the help system 
supports searching properly. In my Gnome-based system, however, help 
searches are directed to all possible help pages, not only Synaptic's 
help pages, which significantly lowers the percentage of relevant hits.)

Thanks for considering this feedback.

Best Regards,
Vesa