“Fixing” WordPress Search

Cut from my post on this “Page Searching examples” thread on the wp-hacker’s list and a continuation of Jared and my conversation on a previous post.

Here’s what I propose, knowing it’s most likely not going to happen
but it will alleviate: user expectation, not bloat the core with
“unnecessary” options and more importantly the patch [I assume] will
only be a few lines of code:

Let’s have WordPress’ default search include:
* Posts
* Pages
* Tags
* Meta fields
* Attachment Fields (title and description)
…this is what I strongly believe the author expects search results
are pulled from.

THEN,
Have the community (maybe me) create a plugin that will provide
options for the user to exclude, limit or include more from the core
search.

All this without requiring the any new options panel.

Pretty much the exact opposite of what’s being done now, except it
will help the average non-plugin wordpress user and the wordpress user
that doesn’t know how the default search works. Whom are the people
I’m thinking about when I make these suggestions or comments, not the
wp-hackers who can write a plugin or the above average .org user
swamped with plugins.

Then again, what about the wordpress.com user?

[These are only suggestions and should not be taken as a directive nor
was any of it meant to be condescending or rude to anyone on this
list. Thanks]

–Dan Cameron
http://dancameron.org