The proposed patch adds to search the ability to generate a block listing the most recent searches performed on the site.

Note that using this block can have unexpected effects on search engine results: the terms recently searched can be picked up by the robots and searched again, artificially inflating their frequency.

CommentFileSizeAuthor
#5 recent_searches_block.patch.txt1.66 KBsillygwailo
#4 searchpatch45v2.tar7.5 KBfgm
#1 searchrecent463_0.patch2.16 KBfgm
searchrecent463.patch2.58 KBfgm
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fgm’s picture

fgm
Primary language French
Location Paris, France
CreditAttribution: fgm commented
FileSize
searchrecent463_0.patch2.16 KB

Changed to include -up option to diff.

Boris Mann’s picture

Boris Mann CreditAttribution: Boris Mann commented
Version: 4.6.3 » x.y.z

This is a great little feature. Of course, my future wishlist is for saved searches with RSS output -- e.g. search/node/[search terms]/feed

Re: the search engine comment -- the statistics block/popular content already does this. It's an interesting FYI, but just kind of the way it is. Theoretically, wrapping it in "nofollow" might change this, but I don't think it's a concern.

Also, setting to CVS -- new features only get applied to new versions, so ideally a 4.7 patch will be provided as well (I'll look into this).

fgm’s picture

fgm
Primary language French
Location Paris, France
CreditAttribution: fgm commented

I pondered this and came up with an idea for a better implementation of this feature, which brings along other advantages for module developers.

However, it involves changes to core tables and a new hook, so I've put up a wiki page to discuss it before code gets written: http://wiki.audean.com/doku.php?id=dr:zeitgeist

Feel free to comment here, or edit on the wiki: I think these changes would be for the better, but the consequences must be considered.

fgm’s picture

fgm
Primary language French
Location Paris, France
CreditAttribution: fgm commented
FileSize
searchpatch45v2.tar7.5 KB

The new version of the patch

- incorporates a database change to watchdog as discussed at the previous comment: a NULL-able "data" column is added to the watchdog table for raw logging
- is more resilient as it no longers relies on the formatting in the watchdog tables, so it should be i18n-compatible
- works both node and user search, and should work on other search types as well

sillygwailo’s picture

sillygwailo
Location Toronto, ON
CreditAttribution: sillygwailo commented
FileSize
recent_searches_block.patch.txt1.66 KB

Attached is a patch based on fgm's, but patching the 4.7 beta 2 version of the search module.

My patch also cleans up the whitespace, changes some variable names to be more descriptive, and adds rel="nofollow" to the links (to prevent search engines from archiving searches, throwing off the recent searches block entirely).

Dries’s picture

Dries CreditAttribution: Dries commented

I guess this would be a handy block to display on the sidebar of the search page. I think Richard's code needs a bit of work though. It seems to assume that people want 5 results only, and that all searches are 'node'-searches. I leave it up to someone else to provide a more in depth review.

Steven’s picture

Steven CreditAttribution: Steven commented

The patch also breaks on non-english installs. Scraping the watchdog table is just plain ugly.

We also need to consider the performance impact of a DISTINCT query on a possibly large table.

fgm’s picture

fgm
Primary language French
Location Paris, France
CreditAttribution: fgm commented

Steven "Scraping the watchdog table is just plain ugly". That's precisely why I made the suggestion described in my followup dated 30/11/05 09:23.

The i18n issue is described on the discussion page I mentioned in that followup. Note that Richard's patch is based on my initial quick hack, not on the better version discussed in the followup and the wiki.

fgm’s picture

fgm
Primary language French
Location Paris, France
CreditAttribution: fgm commented
Assigned: Unassigned » fgm
Status: Needs review » Fixed

I dropped the patch idea entirely and rebuilt the feature more cleanly, as a standalone module:
http://drupal.org/node/50188

markus_petrux’s picture

markus_petrux CreditAttribution: markus_petrux commented

Zeitgeist? What does it mean?

Sorry for my ignorance. Though, I believe if the module was named "Recent searches" or something similar it would reach more people.

fgm’s picture

fgm
Primary language French
Location Paris, France
CreditAttribution: fgm commented

A basic answer:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zeitgeist

And possibly the world's most famous zeitgeist page:
http://www.google.com/press/zeitgeist.html

Indeed, in the module itself, the block is called "recent searches".

markus_petrux’s picture

markus_petrux CreditAttribution: markus_petrux commented

Thanks a lot! Very interesting, really. :-)

Anonymous’s picture

(not verified) CreditAttribution: commented
Status: Fixed » Closed (fixed)