Alerting users to the need for double quotes

  • Resolved margmacd

    (@margmacd)


    7 years ago

    Hello

    I have very recently installed the plugin Highlight Search Terms and tried out a few test runs, which proved encouraging. I would very much appreciate advice on how to help users of my site see at a glance before initiating a search that double quotes are required when searching specifically for a string of multiple words. I appreciate that this may require some coding but am hopeful that users of this plugin may be able to share their own success stories in this area. One idea that springs to mind is having the tip on double quotes appear once the user clicks the search icon. I would welcome feedback.

    Thanks in advance!

Viewing 3 replies - 1 through 3 (of 3 total)
  • Plugin Author Rolf Allard van Hagen

    (@ravanh)

    Hi Marg, you could simply place a text widget below your search widget with short instructions?

    I should mention:
    1. This plugin does not change the WordPress internal search method (quotes or no quotes), it just tries to follow the users search input as closely as possible and highlight relevant terms.
    2. Quotes are not mandatory in a WordPress search. It’s just that with quotes, WordPress will treat the search terms as one term and the search results can therefor be different than without quotes.

    Thread Starter margmacd

    (@margmacd)

    Okay, Rav; so I just need to explore use of widgets a bit more. I find the use of double quotes really useful and was not aware that this was a feature of the standard search engine on WordPress. Without them, a high percentage of search results on my site would prove irrelevant.

    Thanks for the pointer to use of a text widget.

    Best wishes

    • This reply was modified 7 years ago by margmacd.
    Plugin Author Rolf Allard van Hagen

    (@ravanh)

    There are some plugins out there to improve or replace the internal WordPress search engine.?I think the most popular one is Relevanssi. It might be worth checking some of them out, specially if you feel the core search does not give meaningful results for your users.

    Note that, my plugin only highlights the search terms trying to respect the use of quotes inline with the WordPress core search. This might not be a perfect match with other search plugins so you’ll need to keep an eye on that too…

Viewing 3 replies - 1 through 3 (of 3 total)
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