[RFC] ACP Search

[jsebean]

Many forum softwares have a feature where you can "search" the ACP. I've used a number of board softwares such as MyBB and IPB and the Search in their ACPs have made life a lot easier to find options, especially being a new user. Also for advanced users by having search it means you have a lot less clicking to do, and with phpBB being a pretty advanced forum software with a lot of options, I think a Search box for the ACP would be really nice.

[callumacrae]

+1

[MichaelC]

+1. Sounds like a good idea. But would it search in the Module Names or the content of the modules?

[jsebean]

+1. Sounds like a good idea. But would it search in the Module Names or the content of the modules?

I'd say why not both.

[A_Jelly_Doughnut]

I'd like to think about how this could be accomplished before stating an opinion on whether this is a good feature. I think it would require a rewrite of the ACP (which is OK, but would affect my vote)

[MichaelC]

Why would it require a re-write of the ACP? All it would need to do is search through the modules table (or what ever the name for it is)? I'm assuming the name is in the modules table.

Thats why I asked about names or content, as searching content means searching through files which then gets complicated with template vars etc.

For titles it would decode the language vars then search them. Although that is quite slow and intensive when you have a large number of modules so there would need to be a way to index modules, then when adding modules it would re-index the modules.

[brunoais]

Hum... Sounds good.
It will require a change of the DB parameters. The name of the module
The modules only have the keyname E.g. ACP_MESSAGES. We'll need to make a match between what is in the languages folder and make a reverse lookup to find the key.
A good idea is to save the result of the reverse lookup in the session variables and use it if the search is used again.

[MichaelC]

Hum... Sounds good.
It will require a change of the DB parameters. The name of the module
The modules only have the keyname E.g. ACP_MESSAGES. We'll need to make a match between what is in the languages folder and make a reverse lookup to find the key.
A good idea is to save the result of the reverse lookup in the session variables and use it if the search is used again.

Why would it require a re-write of the ACP? All it would need to do is search through the modules table (or what ever the name for it is)?

For titles it would decode the language vars then search them. Although that is quite slow and intensive when you have a large number of modules so there would need to be a way to index modules, then when adding modules it would re-index the modules.

[imkingdavid]

I don't think searching for modules would be as useful as searching for settings or actions. Modules are not that hard to find (imo).

The issue is that settings and actions aren't indexed afaik, so it wouldn't be easy to search for them at the moment. Also, currently there are duplicated settings (i.e. the same thing in multiple modules) which could make things confusing as well.

We should consider this for after the Cleaning Up the ACP RFC is done, imo.

EDIT: But if it can be implemented correctly, +1

[Jacob]

Also for advanced users by having search it means you have a lot less clicking to do,

I don't really think so. With 3 clicks you can be wherever you want, typing would take more time. For begginers, sure, but I think it would be better to rearrange options and modules.