
Ask HN: What do you need in HN search? - jlemoine
Based on your feedback we&#x27;ve come up with a new search UI that should better stick to HN&#x27;s style: https:&#x2F;&#x2F;new-hn.algolia.com<p>Tell us what you think about it and what you&#x27;d like to see next (we&#x27;re thinking for instance about adding search analytics on frequent queries in the last 24h&#x2F;month&#x2F;....)<p>Talking about next evolutions, we actually had something in mind and wanted to run it through HN&#x27;s community. It&#x27;s kind of crazy different so we hope we&#x27;ll get tons of feedback on this one. This is an experimental skin with more search features and you can try on https:&#x2F;&#x2F;new-hn.algolia.com&#x2F;?experimental<p>Here is a blog post explaining our reasoning about this experimental style: http:&#x2F;&#x2F;blog.algolia.com&#x2F;try-new-experimental-version-hn-search&#x2F;<p>We can&#x27;t wait to get your comments and ideas!
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boundlessdreamz
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

~~~
redox_
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?

~~~
boundlessdreamz
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

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biot
The one thing I do like about the new search site is that it doesn't open
everything up in a new tab... something that is an annoyance with the current
search. Please keep it that way! If I want something in a new tab, I'll just
Ctrl+Click on the link.

Some other issues:

* Stories which have no external URL (text submission only) have titles which are not clickable.

* Comment results link to the submitted URL of the story. I was expecting the link would go to the comment itself, though this is likely a personal preference. When I view an individual comment, I either want to see all the other comments on the story or see the context by navigating to the parent if the comment is a reply. Seldom would I expect to view a comment several replies deep and then want to read the story.

* Clicking on the time reference (eg: "an hour ago") takes you to the anchor for the comment within all comments in the story, whereas clicking the "comments" link takes you to the specific individual comment. This is backwards.

* The up arrow shown in results seems to have no function. While it preserves the HN feel, it breaks expectations by having a different behavior. As it's unlikely upvoting from an external site is going to ever work, this should be changed to some other visual indicator.

~~~
redox_
Thank you for the detailed feedback; we'll work on that!

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Poiesis
Well, my large corporate employer uses Websense which seems to categorize
hn.algolia.com as ("Category: hacking"), and blocks all queries (HN itself is
fine). So I guess I'd say I need...search. Maybe you can get off the
blacklist/on a whitelist?

~~~
redox_
Oh, interesting :/ Is it the same on "new-hn.algolia.com"? (we removed the
HTTP OPTION query that was performed to deal with extra headers & CORS ->
maybe it didn't help).

~~~
Poiesis
I can access new-hn though I can't say whether it's due to your changes. The
https redirect adds an extra step because of a click through "this site could
be evil" that Websense adds--I think it stores the acceptance for the http
site, but then the https redirect happens which isn't registered on the
"possibly evil" click through acceptance list so it initially fails. Manually
going to the https version fixes this problem, though.

Man, I hate proxies.

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JDiculous
How about making the site responsive/mobile-friendly first before tackling
search?

~~~
Shipow
it's planned but we wanted to validate the layout before making all
responsive.

~~~
waxjar
This is how the website looks on my machine:
[http://i.imgur.com/j2bavtp.png](http://i.imgur.com/j2bavtp.png). Horizontal
scrolling only reveals more of the search results.

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jrsmitchell
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'.

~~~
redox_
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.

------
ANTSANTS
I haven't been able to produce a reliable test case, but I have noticed that
fairly often, I try to search for a story or comment that I _know_ exists,
that I distinctly remember seeing in the past, and I won't be able to find it.
Then randomly, perhaps after reposting said article, I'll try again later,
with the exact same search terms, and it will show up in the results. Then a
few days later, I look it up again, and it doesn't show up anymore.

I'm sorry that that isn't a terribly helpful bug report, but I think you have
a frustrating bug in your backend somewhere.

A more concrete issue present in both the old UI and the new one would be that
there is some kind of problem with your search form such that, on iOS Safari,
the multiple forms control with the little arrows to select between fields
pops up, even though there is only one field. This means you cannot see the
search results while you are typing, when you would otherwise be able to see
at least the title of the first result. Also, hitting "Go" (or now "return")
doesn't make the input control go away, you have to hit the X next to the
field select arrows to view the results, which manages to trip me up every
time. I'm not a web guy though, so I don't know if that last one is inevitable
for this kind of form or something.

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evanwolf
People.

I'd love to see people-search-results beside the regular results. Who were the
top submitters and commenters on links/comments related to my search? so HN
identities like jlemoine.

Bonus points for people mentioned as subjects or authors in the
stories/comments (and the articles the links point to) without an HN identity.
Recognizing human names would be huge. Searching HN for Captain America,
Linus, Steve Jobs, Paul Graham, or your own name should be popular.

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getpost
A search URL that does not change, preferably hosted on ycombinator.com. A
search URL that does not redirect to Octopart, bless their hearts.

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ludwigvan
Notifications like Google Alerts. Whenever I add some certain topics, I want
to be notified if someone adds a comment with those words.

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tomw1808
Guys I love your search, but what I am missing is that you index the content
behind the headlines. So I've build my own, for example:

[http://search.nagrgtr.com/#/search?q=greater%20than%2030kmh%...](http://search.nagrgtr.com/#/search?q=greater%20than%2030kmh%20speed)

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binarymax
I ran into a problem today where I'm trying to find something I saw a really
long time ago - so sorting by date from oldest to newest would be great.

EDIT - If I can filter by date ranges like others have suggested, I would much
prefer that to my sort direction request!

~~~
vblord
I do this all the time. I need to go to google and hope I can find it. I
usually only remember some small thing about it... like "flights" or "data
set". Sorting by date it was on the front page of HN would be best for me.

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

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

~~~
steveklabnik
Ha, neat! :)

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sixothree
The ability to search only my saved articles. I'm guessing HN does no link
click tracking, but searching viewed articles would be nice. These would be
especially useful if the text on the target page were indexed as well.

~~~
Shipow
You can star articles and limit your search to those articles by clicking on
the 'Starred' tab from the left sidebar. Does it help?

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evanwolf
Permalink the query and add comments. So "[https://new-
hn.algolia.com/?experimental&query=GOTHAM%20-man...](https://new-
hn.algolia.com/?experimental&query=GOTHAM%20-manhattan%20-nyc%20-york&sort=byPopularity&prefix&page=0&dateRange=all&type=all")
can become a destination for conversation.

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califield
Perhaps this is too far outside of your existing scope of functionality but
I'll throw it out there: I would really love a "Hacker News Alerts" feature. I
make the same searches every week on a few key terms but it's a manual
process.

If you could push new search results directly to my inbox it would be
convenient.

~~~
redox_
We could partner with [https://www.hnwatcher.com](https://www.hnwatcher.com)
(using the HN Search API btw), they proposed us their help a few months ago.

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clarkm
Custom date ranges with a calendar picker!

~~~
Shipow
It seems that you're not alone to need this feature
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8875125](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8875125)

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rgaidot
Good job ;-) just for fun, I've build my own - based on Elasticsearch
[http://hnpaper.forge.partlab.io](http://hnpaper.forge.partlab.io)

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lquist
I used to use HN Search until the Algolia switch. Now I use Google site
search. Why? Algolia just doesn't help me find what I'm looking for.

~~~
redox_
Could you share with us some failing queries, I would love to fix them.

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blablabla123
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.

~~~
Shipow
Do you mean that some automatic tags would help you to remember the keywords
for a future search?

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SuperKlaus
Shameless plug: HN Search [http://hn.21zoo.com/](http://hn.21zoo.com/)

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ianlevesque
I'd like something that searches the remote contents of the posted urls,
sorted by date.

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taf2
Search over only articles I have read - I often want to find an article I read
last week

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detaro
The option to only search in titles, ignoring the full text of text posts.

~~~
redox_
By default the title is better ranked but then it will also fetch results in
the text, you're right. It could actually makes sense. Just need to figure out
the best way to use it (without flooding the UI). Maybe in the dropdown menu
before the input or with a search syntax.

~~~
detaro
I mostly search ordered by date (because I often try to find things again and
have a rough idea when they were submitted), so I obviously don't see the
ranking effect.

------
digitalpacman
I don't. I use Google site search. It's never failed me.

------
evanwolf
Link back to original HN entry. Can't see it.

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evanwolf
"Ask HN" as a search category.

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gtani
can you differentiate C#, C++, C? (I know n-grams means a much bigger lucene
index when i looked into it)

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biomimic
A real customized algorithm based on vector space.

~~~
nothrabannosir
Do you mean representing each user as a vector in an N-dimensional space for N
= number of possible votes, then using the distance between them as indication
of similarity to weigh their votes relative to your preferences?

If so, +1.

~~~
biomimic
Um, yes distance being calculated by a smarter calculation than Pearsons or
Euclidean, a variation of RV or something that closely mimicks the way our
minds compare for similarity. No bag of words or naive Bayes. True
probability.

