Virgil Ierubino wrote:
> I would really like to see a function like this developed into MediaWiki,
> either an an extension or into a new version. Put simply, one should be able
> to perform searches, limiting the field of search to articles in a given
> category. The reasons why this would be useful are probably obvious. If not
> - the simplest one is just that categories split articles into topics - and
> this would allow a user to search in a given topic.
>
> I see two ways of enacting this, and I think both should be looked into.
> Firstly, an "advanced search" option, which I think is not as favourable.
> Secondly, and this is what I think would really be good, a search box
> automatically appears on a category page.
>
> Alternatively, when one is viewing a category page, the normal search box
> (on the left) acquires a check box - "search in this category".
>
> Additionally, a further checkbox could be interesting: "also search
> subcategories".
>
> I can't imagine this would be too difficult to implement, but would
> certainly be very useful and would make more use of the categorisation
> system in MediaWiki.
Category search could be implemented fairly easily using Lucene fields. But
I think the results would be counterintuitive unless subcategories were
included by default, and that's rather more difficult to implement. A
top-level category in Wikipedia does not contain a collection of articles on
that topic, it contains a list of subcategories and a few miscellaneous
articles.
To implement subcategory search, MW could recursively load parent categories
on page save, and put them in a "parent category" lucene field. Circular
reference detection and resource limits would have to be in place.
-- Tim Starling
