Search keywords not working as expected in frameless output

[Timothy386187870sd3]

I am using RH 2022.5.28 and generating frameless output.  I want a user to be able to find via the Search a topic that contains a search keyword (whether the keyword is one word, such as 'POS', or a multi-word keyword, such as 'point of sale') which appears as part of a comma-delimited list (no quotation marks around the individual keywords) in the content section of the search-keywords meta tag in the header but not in the body of the topic.

Using the generated output, if I search for the topic by placing the keyword within quotation marks (e.g., "POS" or "point of sale") in the Search field, the system does not find the topic. Should it? I was expecting it to.

Using the generated output, if I search for the topic without placing the keyword within quotation marks in the Search field, I get a LOT of matches, which do include the topic, but may bury it so deep I am not likely to find it.  When I search for POS without the quotation marks, for example, I get 426 matches: every topic that includes the whole word 'POS', every topic containing 'PO' (where the system appears to allow PO as a singular form of POS), and every topic containing any word containing 'POS', such as position, posted, deposit, proposal, etc.  In this situation, the topic gets buried so deep a user is not likely to find it. If I search for point of sale without the quotation marks, I get 379 matches: every topic that includes 'point' and/or 'sale'. In this instance, my topic is somehow listed as the first of the 379 matches, possibly because no other topics include 'point' so close to 'sale'.  While I am not disappointed to find the topic this way, it seems counter intuitive to expect a search to find my topic when I don't use quotation marks around a keyword that contains such commonly used words and to not find my topic at all when I use quotation marks around the exact single-word or multi-word keyword, as if doing a consecutive word search.  Is this how searching for a search keyword should work?  Thanks!

[Peter Grainge]

Some paragraphs would make it easier for anyone trying to help you. 🙂

See Item 53 for more about search generally. 

There you will see the Enable Substring Search was reported as not working. I will check later whether that is still an issue as from your post it would appear to be.

What you can do is what I have done, guide the users to use quotes.

See Item 5 in RoboHelp Gems.

________________________________________________________

My site www.grainge.org includes many free Authoring and RoboHelp resources that may be of help.

[Peter Grainge]

Create a new project with just two topics. Enter pos in one and positive in the other.

I found that with Enable Substring Search selected, a search for pos (no quotes) found both topics as it should. With the option deselected, the search only found one topic. 

Do you get the same?

________________________________________________________

My site www.grainge.org includes many free Authoring and RoboHelp resources that may be of help.

[Timothy386187870sd3]

If it helps, here is my original post, with the paragraph breaks. I have also put one sentence in bold.

I am using RH 2022.5.28 and generating frameless output.  I want a user to be able to find via the Search a topic that contains a search keyword (whether the keyword is one word, such as 'POS', or a multi-word keyword, such as 'point of sale') which appears as part of a comma-delimited list (no quotation marks around the individual keywords) in the content section of the search-keywords meta tag in the header but not in the body of the topic.

Using the generated output, if I search for the topic by placing the keyword within quotation marks (e.g., "POS" or "point of sale") in the Search field, the system does not find the topic. Should it? I was expecting it to.

Using the generated output, if I search for the topic without placing the keyword within quotation marks in the Search field, I get a LOT of matches, which do include the topic, but may bury it so deep I am not likely to find it.

When I search for POS without the quotation marks, for example, I get 426 matches: every topic that includes the whole word 'POS', every topic containing 'PO' (where the system appears to allow PO as a singular form of POS), and every topic containing any word containing 'POS', such as position, posted, deposit, proposal, etc.  In this situation, the topic gets buried so deep a user is not likely to find it. If I search for point of sale without the quotation marks, I get 379 matches: every topic that includes 'point' and/or 'sale'. In this instance, my topic is somehow listed as the first of the 379 matches, possibly because no other topics include 'point' so close to 'sale'.  While I am not disappointed to find the topic this way, it seems counter intuitive to expect a search to find my topic when I don't use quotation marks around a keyword that contains such commonly used words and to not find my topic at all when I use quotation marks around the exact single-word or multi-word keyword, as if doing a consecutive word search.  Is this how searching for a search keyword should work?  Thanks!

... End of original post, with the paragraph marks and the sentence in bold.

Peter, in my online help, I have included information on using quotation marks when searching for a specific multiword string.  That is what I and my users expect to be able to do.  See the sentence above in bold. In every test I performed, putting a search keyword (whether a one-word search keyword or a multiword search keyword) within quotation marks when performing a search via the output did not locate any of the topics containing the search keyword.  That is my main reason for writing this post. Again, I thought this functionality should work. It does not.

Also, just to be clear, I am talking specifically about keywords added to a topic as "search" keywords.  Please see the following image:

UI:

HTML

Results using quotation marks around search keywords:

Again, the search will find the topic containing a "search keyword" (including finding the term in a substring as I indirectly noted in the original post) if I do not use quotation marks when performing the search, but that will make the search virtually useless in scenarios where the system returns 100+ matches and the topics users are trying to find are buried in the list.

[Peter Grainge]

I really do recommend a demo project with just a few topics to test this out.

This time I created three topics with keywords as below.

• pos
• point of sale
• positive

Without quotes as I entered the string various suggestions showed but once I pressed Enter, only the correct topics showed. That is one result according to which of the above I entered. With quotes for keywords nothing was found. 

Then I entered point of sale as content in another topic and searched on "point of sale" (i.e. with the quotes). This time it found the topic with point of sale in the topic but not the topic with that phrase in the keywords.

That points to there being a bug in the search function.

Please test in a simple project that you get exactly the same. Let me know and I will then raise a bug and flag it with my Adobe contacts.

UPDATE

I enabled Enable Substring Search

Point of Sale finds both topics.

"Point of Sale" finds only the topic with that in the content, it fails to find the search keyword topic

"pos" finds both topics. There is thus a difference with single word searches.

________________________________________________________

My site www.grainge.org includes many free Authoring and RoboHelp resources that may be of help.

[Timothy386187870sd3]

I tested on a different project. I found the same results involving "search" keywords.

If I used quotation marks to search for "gray diamond" where "gray diamond" was a "search" keyword and appeared in the text of the topic, a search for "gray diamond" within quotation marks located the topic.

If I used quotation marks to search for "purple circle" where "purple circle" was a "search" keyword that did not appear in the text of the topic (i.e., did not appear anywhere within the html body tags), a search for "purple circle" within quotation marks did not locate the topic--and this is the issue/bug.

[Timothy386187870sd3]

My bad. I only tested half of what you asked me to test. I tested multiword "search" keywords. I did not test single-word "search" keywords. I did not get the same results you did..

If I used quotation marks to search for "gray" where "gray" was a "search" keyword and appeared in the text of the topic, a search for "gray" within quotation marks located the topic.

If I used quotation marks to search for "purple" where "purple" was a "search" keyword that did not appear in the text of the topic (i.e., did not appear anywhere within the html body tags), a search for "purple" within quotation marks did not locate the topic. The bug is that the system does not find a topic that includes a "search" keyword (multiword keyword or single-word keyword) if the user puts the "search" keyword in quotation marks when performing the search.

[Peter Grainge]

OK. I will create a bug report later and post a link here. 

________________________________________________________

My site www.grainge.org includes many free Authoring and RoboHelp resources that may be of help.

[Timothy386187870sd3]

Since we posted at about the same time and since my findings were different from yours, please see the second part of my reply before posting the bug report.  Thanks!

[Peter Grainge]

Too late but did you enable Substring search?

If you are sure your test is the same, add a comment to the thread.

________________________________________________________

My site www.grainge.org includes many free Authoring and RoboHelp resources that may be of help.

[Peter Grainge]

https://tracker.adobe.com/#/view/RH-12826 created.

________________________________________________________

My site www.grainge.org includes many free Authoring and RoboHelp resources that may be of help.

[Timothy386187870sd3]

Yes, I have the "Enable substring search" box checked on the Search > Search Context page.
As noted in a separate message I sent you, I think a more precise wording of the bug would be:
The system does not find a topic that includes a "search" keyword (multiword keyword or single-word keyword) if: 1) the topic does not include the “search” keyword in the body of the topic (which is the purpose of adding a “search” keyword) and 2) the user puts the "search" keyword in quotation marks when performing the search.