Search for messages

[nickvergessen]

• Simple search for messages (no files/shares shown)
• Avatar of poster for users, talk icon for guests (for now)
• No filter to current conversation possible (should have a short cut like in:<conversation> ?)

• Trim message in case longer than X chars, limiting to "relevant" part + pre + post?
• Filter placeholders mention-*- and don't search for it?

Follow ups

• Avatar for guests
• Scroll to the relevant message on clicking?

[nickvergessen]

@nextcloud/designers-talk

Some questions:

• Due to technical reasons mentions are stored as {mention-user-NUMBER}, searching for mention, user, and numbers will create dozens of "false positives". Adding a regex around it to lookahead/lookbehind is not feasable performance wise, so I would not search in talk, when that is what you type. Is that okay?
• Should searching for talk searchsearch for "talk search" or "talk" + "search"? Currently the first thing is done and it's the same in all other apps I guess?
• What is a feasible length to trim messages at? We can't throw a "up to 64k chars" message in the search…
• Time when the message was posted is the order by at the moment, should we still also display it in the subline? Or is that too much details?

[jancborchardt]

I would not search in talk, when that is what you type. Is that okay?

So you mean when searching for the literal words "mention" and "user" and any number?
I’d say that’s alright as the first thing, but we should definitely be able to search for these things. Especially numbers are quite relevant, e.g. when talking about account numbers, issue numbers, package tracking, or whatnot is done in organizations.

Should searching for talk searchsearch for "talk search" or "talk" + "search"? Currently the first thing is done and it's the same in all other apps I guess?

@skjnldsv how do the other apps do it, or rather the other solutions you checked out for this? This should not be handled by the apps but by unified search centrally.

What is a feasible length to trim messages at? We can't throw a "up to 64k chars" message in the search…

What is the max length of messages, 64k chars? And does trimming mean that we will not search past that part of the message (which is not so good) or does it just mean that we will not be able to show the relevant part in the subline of the search result, but still show it (that’s fine).

Time when the message was posted is the order by at the moment, should we still also display it in the subline? Or is that too much details?

Yes, that’s good as the order – with most recent at the top. Not necessary to display that in the subline, indeed too much details. :)

[skjnldsv]

@skjnldsv how do the other apps do it, or rather the other solutions you checked out for this? This should not be handled by the apps but by unified search centrally.

honestly, no idea, each app can handle its own data.
This is a whole dedicated job to properly manage search results and know algorithms that have proper relevancy :)

[jancborchardt]

Well then I’d say that a search for talk search should be handled like "talk" + "search" as it’s fuzzier, while restricting it to "talk search" would get too few results or none. E.g. often you might search for topic person, disjointed keywords you remember, not things which actually were directly said after each other.

[rullzer]

Well then I’d say that a search for talk search should be handled like "talk" + "search" as it’s fuzzier, while restricting it to "talk search" would get too few results or none. E.g. often you might search for topic person, disjointed keywords you remember, not things which actually were directly said after each other.

This really is not a topic to discuss here.

[rullzer]

What is the max length of messages, 64k chars? And does trimming mean that we will not search past that part of the message (which is not so good) or does it just mean that we will not be able to show the relevant part in the subline of the search result, but still show it (that’s fine).

If you write messages longer than 64k chars then it is your own fault if things break down

[nickvergessen]

Well well well, that escalated quickly.

The char limit is not about search, but how much we should show in the result.

does it just mean that we will not be able to show the relevant part in the subline of the search result, but still show it (that’s fine).

Also the message is not the subline at the moment, but the title, as that is where your search match is in. subline is for orientation details (copied from comments)

[nickvergessen]

I switched title and subline now, and trim the message, if it is longer than 40 chars and the search term is not in the first 30:

[rullzer]

Looks really nice!
LGTM :D

[nickvergessen]

Missing to jump to the respective message but that's also the case for quotes, so let's do that as a follow up.

[nickvergessen]

Still requires nextcloud/server#22111 in server

[marcoambrosini]

For me clicking the search result doesn't route to the conversation

[nickvergessen]

I pushed right before your comment

[marcoambrosini]

As said let's get this in and do the fetching and scrolling in a followup