Search Engine is not very good or 'smart'

[Israel Dahl]

The documentation needs a serious search engine that is extremely smart (Developer Scope might be helpful in the future!?). Being a complete n00b and trying to figure things* out from documentation was impossible (IRC and e-mailing people helped). However, all the answers were buried deep in the catacombs of Ubuntu. Please make all the info easier to find / figure out.

*one thing of note, is my question about the software-center categories.
Q.) "What controls the way the software center categorieses programs?"
A.) "Your search did not match any documents. Please make sure that all words are spelled correctly and that you've selected enough categories."
Q.) software center category
A.) "Your search did not match any documents. Please make sure that all words are spelled correctly and that you've selected enough categories."

what is the answer? How do I look for it?? I tried asking a question and I tried simple keywords.

**Another would be how the desktop file gets installed (which I know now after some IRC sessions, etc..)
Q.) "How does a package install the desktop file?"
A.) "Your search did not match any documents. Please make sure that all words are spelled correctly and that you've selected enough categories."

VERSUS
Q.) "desktop file install"
Search finished, found 3 page(s) matching the search query.

    Basic Overview of the debian/ Directory
    ...icy (Section 12.5) <http://www.debian.org/doc/debian-policy/ch-docs.html#s-copyrightfile>`_ require that each package installs a verbatim copy of its copyright and license information to ``/usr/share/doc/$(package_name)/copyright``. Gen...

    Fixing a bug in Ubuntu
    ...$ apt-cache showsrc python-vigra | grep ^Package: Package: libvigraimpex ``apt-cache`` is part of the standard installation of Ubuntu. Getting the code ================ Once you know the source package to work on, you will want t...
    Introduction to Ubuntu Development
    ...Once this source package is compiled, the build process provides binary packages, which are the .deb files users can install. Every time a new version of an application is released, or when someone makes a change to the source code that...

http://developer.ubuntu.com/packaging/html/debian-dir-overview.html?highlight=desktop%20file%20install#the-install-file

is the correct answer.... but the search engine is not smart enough to figure out I am asking it a question.

So I have to ask my question in the form of an answer to find it, but that may not work either because the information is not there(?) or burried somewhere deep in the Ubuntu catacombs.

[Dmitry Shachnev (mitya57)]

In both examples you provided ("software center category", "desktop file install") the answer to your question doesn't exist in the docs — how do you think search is supposed to find it?

For content that *is* there, search should do its best — i.e. it understands common english suffices/endings, and correctly handles prepositions.

You can find the search code here (feel free to contribute): https://bitbucket.org/birkenfeld/sphinx/src/tip/sphinx/themes/basic/static/searchtools.js_t.

[Israel Dahl (israeldahl)]

Thanks so much for your reply, however, in the bug report I noted
{

Q.) "How does a package install the desktop file?"
A.) "Your search did not match any documents. Please make sure that all words are spelled correctly and that you've selected enough categories."

VERSUS
Q.) "desktop file install"
Search finished, found 3 page(s) matching the search query.

    Basic Overview of the debian/ Directory
    ...icy (Section 12.5) <http://www.debian.org/doc/debian-policy/ch-docs.html#s-copyrightfile>`_ require that each package installs a verbatim copy of its copyright and license information to ``/usr/share/doc/$(package_name)/copyright``. Gen...

    Fixing a bug in Ubuntu
    ...$ apt-cache showsrc python-vigra | grep ^Package: Package: libvigraimpex ``apt-cache`` is part of the standard installation of Ubuntu. Getting the code ================ Once you know the source package to work on, you will want t...
    Introduction to Ubuntu Development
    ...Once this source package is compiled, the build process provides binary packages, which are the .deb files users can install. Every time a new version of an application is released, or when someone makes a change to the source code that...

http://developer.ubuntu.com/packaging/html/debian-dir-overview.html?highlight=desktop%20file%20install#the-install-file
}

THIS LAST PART IS THE ANSWER, however... asking in "common english" i.e. Q.) "How does a package install the desktop file?" returned no results. asking with uncommon syntax for normal speakers i.e. Q.) "desktop file install" produces the correct result. So I filed this bug:
Search Engine is not very good or 'smart'

Because the search enginge wasn't smart enough to find the same content when I made it a question.
It is also not very *good* because, as you said " the answer to your question doesn't exist in the docs".

So the bug is filed against the ubuntu packing guide missing core information such as "What controls the way the software center categorieses programs?"