Re: [Boost-users] Could searching and indexing Boost docs might work better?

-----Original Message----- From: boost-users-bounces@lists.boost.org [mailto:boost-users- bounces@lists.boost.org] On Behalf Of Cory Nelson Sent: Saturday, September 18, 2010 4:37 PM To: boost-users@lists.boost.org Subject: Re: [Boost-users] Could searching and indexing Boost docs might work better?

On Sat, Sep 18, 2010 at 6:36 AM, Dave Abrahams wrote:

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On Thu, Sep 16, 2010 at 3:54 AM, Paul A. Bristow

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Using boost.org and entering "Running specific test units selected by their name" into the search box also didn't produce the latest docs page above, only out of date stuff. Limiting search to www.boost.org didn't get 1.44 docs (only misleading ref to 1.38).

This is because of the way our versioned docs are done. You can always get to the latest version of a page by substituting "release" for the version number in the URL, but because that is just a redirect, it doesn't end up in Google's index. Maybe the "release" URLs should be the actual pages that are redirected from the latest version number and we should be telling google not to index any of the pages that have a version number in the URL.

I don't like this. You might end up missing some functionality that was changed or removed from a prior version. Users of 1.40 packaged with their favorite linux distro might not be able to find the docs for their old Filesystem code.

How about a notice at the top of the page saying that it might not be for the latest and greatest version, with a link to the "release" version?

Or (more complex) do what MSDN does, and have a box on each page like "This page is specific to Boost X. Other versions are also available for the following: Boost Y, Boost Z"

Neither of these solve the real problem - Google is not indexing the release version, surely this is the most important of all? Ideally, all versions should be indexed, but this too might be confusing - very many index entries for the same item in *all* the old versions. Perhaps including 'release' in the search terms? Or some 'old' flag - but you can't add that later (after has been indexed) can you? But I'm not sure if Google will respect that as a 'must have' and or a 'must not' term? I'm not sure how to solve this, but I feel it is really rather important. A Google search on boost.org at least should find the release version. Paul --- Paul A. Bristow, Prizet Farmhouse, Kendal LA8 8AB UK +44 1539 561830 07714330204 pbristow@hetp.u-net.com