Make Rustdoc Search easier to learn

[nikomatsakis]

Metadata
Owner(s)	@notriddle
Team(s)	rustdoc, rustdoc-frontend
Goal document	2024h2/rustdoc-search

Summary

To make rustdoc's search engine more useful:

• Respond to some existing feedback.
• Write blog and forum posts to advertise these new features to the larger community, and seek out feedback to continue the progress.

Tasks and status

• Discussion and moral support (rustdoc )
• Improve on any discovered weaknesses
  • Implementation: show type signature in SERP (@notriddle)
  • Implementation: tweak search algo (@notriddle)
  • Standard reviews (rustdoc-frontend )
  • Design meeting (rustdoc-frontend )
  • FCP review (rustdoc-frontend )
• Feedback and testing
  • Inside Rust blog post inviting feedback

[nikomatsakis]

This issue is intended for status updates only.

For general questions or comments, please contact the owner(s) directly.

[notriddle]

Both PRs are blocked on reaching consensus for handling of generic parameters.

[notriddle]

Key developments:

• rustdoc-search: show type signature on type-driven SERP rust#124544 and rustdoc-search: simplify rules for generics and type params rust#127589 have been approved and merged. Rustdoc will now show type signatures in the search results page, and the boxing transform behaves more like Hoogle's does.

• rustdoc search: allow queries to end in an empty path segment rust#132569 also improves matching behavior to fit what some people have expected.

Blockers:

• rustdoc: use a button instead of a bar for search rust#133279, along with a few other things, aims to add an "example searches" list to the initial page when you enter search mode. Not sure if this will be approved, but if so, it should also help surface some of rustdoc's search functionality.

• https://rust-lang.zulipchat.com/#narrow/channel/266220-t-rustdoc/topic/search.20syntax.20proposal is discussing the treatment of type: filters. If we decide to change that, then any docs will need updated to match it, and the blog post will need to introduce it.

Help wanted:

• I'm the only person who has ever gotten https://gitlab.com/notriddle/rustdoc-js-profile to run. That is unacceptable. I need someone with access to a powerful computer to attempt to run it (it builds a couple of very large crates), and report what fails so that I can fix it. Alternatively, we may abandon the attempt to benchmark the search engine under Node and use a different bench tool entirely.