Search Question Redux

[kevinmcl]

I have an old Defect lingering in my to-do list, and I'd like to clear it.

The author of the complaint said:

"The webhelp does not support searching by the full function name.
Go to search and look for C_GetFunctionList which is not found and then GetFunctionList which is found.
Underscore needs to be in the list of allowed characters for search patterns."

I agreed then.

I still agree, now that I have Flare 8 running on Windows 7 and have switched to HTML5 output for my Help.

I just tried his search and got exactly the same failure that prompted the initial Defect a few years ago.

Does anybody else have the problem? Or is it just me?

The Reference section of my Help includes hundreds of function names and calls, ALL OF THEM with underscores embedded. Customers want to be able to search by whole and partial names. My Help is stand-alone and is not served by a web server, so I must rely on the search feature that's included.

I really don't like telling my customers "we're using a tool that doesn't support proper search, so try faking it out by replacing the '_' with blank space or with ' AND '. so 'C_GetFunctionList' might return results if you use 'C AND GetFunctionList' instead... no promises".

So, is there a setting I've missed, perhaps? One left over from earlier times, maybe? Where would I look for this?
How can I tell the updated search of HTML5 help pages that "_" is a legitimate search term?


-kevin

[Robotman]

Not sure if this will work, but you can try:

1. In the HTML5 target, click the Performance tab.
2. Tick the Include Stop-Words in Search option.
3. Re-compile and try your search again.

[kevinmcl]

Yes! Thanks.

I think I vaguely remember turning that off, eons ago (maybe even RoboHelp days?) due to another user complaint about search speed.

It's back on. Speed seems OK to me, and maybe whoever complained before is dead now, or retired. So the current complaint is now partly satisfied.