A search function would be a lovely addition to halfbakery because it would make finding ideas of interest a quicker process and, I wager, reduce near-duplicate postings as a result.

True, near-duplication doesn't seem to be a grave problem at the moment, but the new, more distinctly categorized interface "hides" an idea based on someone else's idea of its proper category, making it much more likely that a user will fail to notice a parallel entry before posting.
-- jplummer, Jul 21 2000

(?) List User's Annotations http://www.halfbake...tions#968979431-2-1
(contains response from Jutta) [Lemon, Jul 21 2000, last modified Oct 17 2004]

Search. http://www.halfbakery.com/search.html
Finally. [jutta, Jul 21 2000]

(?) List User's Annotations http://www.halfbake....html#968979431-2-1
(contains response from Jutta) [Lemon, Oct 21 2004]

I would say let a search engine (Altavista, Infoseek) crawl the whole site, then place their search form and button on a page somewhere. It looks like this site is comprised of real, tangible webpages, not manufactured on the fly with PHP or something. I know that Infoseek and others lets you constrain your search to one domain only, so one can set that as a flag in the FORM code of your search form.

It's quick and dirty, but might suit your needs until you find time to write one!

Here's an example code (edited and pulled from my site). It will search spidered Halfbakery pages only, and display the results at the Infoseek/GO Network site:

<FORM method="get" action="http://www.infoseek.com/Titles"> <a href="http://www.infoseek.com/
Titles?qt=url%3Awww.halfbakery.com
&sn=213373009&lk=noframes"></a> <INPUT type=text NAME="qt" SIZE=40 MAXLENGTH=80>
Powered by <a href="http://guide.infoseek.com/"> Infoseek</a> &nbsp;<INPUT TYPE=submit VALUE="seek"> <INPUT TYPE=reset VALUE="clear">&nbsp; <a href = "http://www.infoseek.com/
Help?pg=DChelp.html
&lk=noframes"><b>Tips</b></a> <input type=hidden name="col" value="WW,cat_RES"> <INPUT TYPE=hidden NAME="oq" VALUE="url:www.halfbakery.com/"> <INPUT TYPE=hidden NAME="sv" VALUE="IS"> <INPUT TYPE=hidden NAME="lk" VALUE="noframes"> <INPUT TYPE=hidden NAME="nh" VALUE="10"> </FORM>
-- quanta, Aug 27 2000


PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE give us a search! I posted an annotation to an idea a few weeks ago and I can't find it anywhere!!
-- goff, Oct 20 2000


Hey, it works... what fun! I hadn't realized I'd annotated that many things.
-- PotatoStew, Dec 04 2000


Out of curiosity, how'd you implement it?
-- egnor, Dec 04 2000


Hashtables mapping the words from your querying
To hashed names of objects the words might appear in
Then grepping those objects (as lower case strings)
These are a few of my favorite things.
-- jutta, Dec 04 2000


I've subjected the new search to rigorous vanity-search testing, and have concluded that it is a beaut. Half the suggestions in this category made obsolete at a blow.
-- Monkfish, Dec 04 2000


Yay!
-- StarChaser, Dec 05 2000



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