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June 1, 2010 7:16 AM

Display Search Results Pony: Would it be possible to give us an option to choose how many search results are displayed on a page?

When composing posts, I usually do keyword searches to make sure I'm not about to create a double and frequently, the word(s) I'm searching for turn up several hundred results. The search function is fantastic, but it only shows 20 results at a time, creating a situation where I have to click to the next page repeatedly.

Obviously this isn't a huge inconvenience. But how difficult would it be to set a search results option in preferences, which would allow say, "20, 50, 100" results to be shown at once?

posted by zarq to Feature Requests at 7:16 AM (10 comments total)

The Search feature is the most resource-intensive feature we have, so we have 20 results to keep things as speedy as possible. It wouldn't be a big deal to show 100 results every once in a while, but making this a permanent part of the interface could really grind things to a halt. I can do some testing and see how bad it would be, but my first reaction is that it would slow things down too much. We're running everything on a couple servers so we have to be fairly conservative with where our resources go.
posted by pb (staff) at 7:48 AM on June 1, 2010

Anyone want to host a read-only version of Mefi for search purposes?
posted by blue_beetle at 7:50 AM on June 1, 2010

Madness! I thought Recent Activitiy was the most resource intensive! And don't you challenge me with your logic and tell me "Well Recent Activity is just several searches strung together, so yeah well duh it's the Search dingleberry!"

But seriously;

zarq, I've been there, though I have not made posts as lovingly hand crafted as yours, have you considered Googling something like

site:metafilter.com +squid[s] nets netting ocean

? Constrained to the blue, or the grey, what have you, Google has been pretty great for me. Yahoo used to be better like two years ago but Google seems to have fixed whatever was preventing their fine warehousing of MeFi data.
posted by cavalier at 7:52 AM on June 1, 2010

I thought Recent Activitiy was the most resource intensive!

Ha! Depends on the feature request.
posted by pb (staff) at 7:53 AM on June 1, 2010

Just for a reference point, if I could automatically display 100 search results I would. I like having as many search results on the page as possible. I'm sure I'm not the only person here like that.
posted by theichibun at 8:25 AM on June 1, 2010

The Search feature is the most resource-intensive feature we have, so we have 20 results to keep things as speedy as possible.

It is incredibly quick... and I'm grateful for it. :)

It wouldn't be a big deal to show 100 results every once in a while, but making this a permanent part of the interface could really grind things to a halt. I can do some testing and see how bad it would be, but my first reaction is that it would slow things down too much. We're running everything on a couple servers so we have to be fairly conservative with where our resources go.

Thanks! :) Obviously, it's no problem if it's not possible -- server speed and uptime are more important.
posted by zarq at 8:28 AM on June 1, 2010

Madness! I thought Recent Activitiy was the most resource intensive! And don't you challenge me with your logic and tell me "Well Recent Activity is just several searches strung together, so yeah well duh it's the Search dingleberry!"

HA! I had never thought about it before, but would have bet that Recent Activity was more resource intensive, too.

zarq, I've been there, though I have not made posts as lovingly hand crafted as yours, have you considered Googling something like

site:metafilter.com +squid[s] nets netting ocean

Yep. I use Google, too and it's gotten a LOT better over the last year or so. But I prefer the in-site search. It's easier to read & includes more text, and I can add things to my favorites, too. :D

...posts as lovingly hand crafted as yours..

Thanks!! :)
posted by zarq at 8:31 AM on June 1, 2010

I've never pitted Recent Activity and Search against each other for resources. They each have their own special problems. RA gets a lot of use, so in terms of volume it's winning. I'm guessing that if Search reached the the same volume of use it would win the resource intensive award.
posted by pb (staff) at 8:45 AM on June 1, 2010

Just ran some quick tests and it doesn't seem too bad. If you want to try it yourself you can tack on &num=100 to any search results URL and you'll get 100 results/page.
posted by pb (staff) at 11:00 AM on June 1, 2010 [6 favorites]

pb, you're the best! THANK YOU!!!! That's awesome.
posted by zarq at 12:15 PM on June 1, 2010