App/Search

XOWA can search for a page by title

Search by page title

XOWA can find a page by words in its title. For example, typing earth will pull up all titles with the word, including Earth and History of Earth. More complicated searches can be performed, such as earth + (history, future) -middle

XOWA currently cannot search by text within a page (full-text search). This will be added in a future version.

Usage

There are three ways to use search:

• Type into the address bar. A list of suggestions appear underneath.
• Type into the suggest box. A list of suggestions appear underneath. Note that this box is near the top-right hand corner of the page between "View HTML" and the magnifying glass icon.
• Type "?:some word" into the address bar. For example, enter ?:earth in the address bar when in Simple Wikipedia

Syntax

The following syntax is supported for search text:

name	description	symbol	example	finds	skips
single word	finds pages which start with this word (automatic wildcard at the end)		earth	Earth History of Earth Earthquake
single word with space	finds pages which have this word exactly (no automatic wildcard)		earth	Earth History of Earth	Earthquake
multiple words	finds pages which have all these words		earth history	History of Earth Earth history	Earth
wildcard	finds pages which start with these letters	*	earth*	Earth History of Earth Earthquake
	finds pages which end with these letters	*	*earth	Earth History of Earth Earthquake Hearth
	finds pages which start / end with these letters	*	e*h	Earth History of Earth Earthquake English language
not	skips pages which have this word	-	earth -history	Earth	History of Earth
or	includes pages which have this word	,	earth, history	History of Earth Earth history History Earth
and	requires pages to have this word	+	earth + history	History of Earth Earth history	History Earth
quote	requires pages to have this exact text	"	"earth history"	Earth history	History of Earth History Earth
parentheses	allows complicated and / or grouping	( )	earth + (history, future)	History of Earth Future of Earth	Earth
escape	allows searching for any symbols above	\	c\+\+	C++

General

• Spaces are ignored
  • earth, history is the same as earth , history or earth ,history
• Incorrect terms are auto-corrected as per the following:
  • earth - history is the same as earth history
  • earth + is the same as earth
  • earth, is the same as earth
  • "earth is the same as "earth". Note that "earth history becomes "earth" history.
  • (earth is the same as earth
  • c\ is the same as c

Wildcard

• Wildcards are automatically added to the last word. For example, earth histor is the same as earth histor*.
• Wildcards will be slower than non-wildcarded versions. In terms of performance, they are ranked as following:
  • end of word
    • faster, especially when word is longer. EX: abcdefghi* vs a*
    • may be slow for certain multi-word queries. EX: page meg*
    • uses the >= < operators: word_text >= ? AND word_text < ?
    • uses an INDEX scan
  • beginning of word / middle of word
    • may be fast if matching a common string. EX: *a, *arth
    • will be slow for queries that don't match results. EX: ea*rh
    • uses the LIKE operator: word_text LIKE ? ESCAPE '|'
    • uses a TABLE scan

Not

• - only works at the start of the word
  • earth hi-story is the same as earth "hi-story". In other words, the - is literal
• - must be used with a word. Entering just -QXZ will return 0 results

Quote

• Quotes can also be used for escaping. For example "c++" is the same as c\+\+
• Quotes must be doubled up inside quotes. For example "a""b" means search for a word with a"b

Sorting

By default, XOWA returns results sorted by "page length descending". In other words, the largest page would be the first in the list and the smallest page would be the last.

If a wiki is built with PageRank, or if a wiki is downloaded from archive.org, then the results will be sorted by "PageRank descending". See Options/Search for enabling PageRank.

Background database search

By default, XOWA runs database searches in the background. This will return results to the screen quickly for complicated searches. For example, consider a search for Earth*:

• When the search runs in the background, the first result shows up in 2 seconds, and more results show up every second afterwards. The search will complete in 5 seconds.
• When the search does not run in the background, all the results show up at the 5 second mark.

While a search is running in the background, there will be a link called Stop searching. Clicking on the link will stop the background search, though the current results may be incomplete.

Finally, all search results are cached. The first time you search for Earth*, XOWA will search the database. Every time afterwards, it will pull the results up from memory. If you restart XOWA, it will search the database again.

Database update

XOWA wikis created before v3.3.4.1 will need to be upgraded. XOWA will detect if an upgrade is needed, and show a message box for confirmation. The upgrade process will take a few minutes.

Note that new wikis created after v3.3.4.1 will automatically be in the new format.

Options

There are 2 pages for configuring Search

• Configure PageRank: See Options/Search
• Configure Address bar autocomplete: See Options/Search_suggest