Forum:Searching is undergoing a massive, Wikia-driven change

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Over the past week or so, the search bar has been behaving quite differently. This change is nothing to do with Tardis. Rather, it's a Wikia change — which means there's nothing we can do about it.

Apparently, Wikia have changed their minds abou how they'd like the function to work. They no longer want a search to take you directly to the page you're looking for. Therefore, they've changed search so that it gives you a list of articles that match your search term. (Basically, they're forcing the approximate behavior of Special:Search on the main search bar.)

Additionally, they've stripped away some functionality entirely, such as the ability to search to another wiki. It used to be possible to enter starwars:yoda in the search page and end up at the Wookieepedia article about Yoda, but this is no longer the case.

If you'd like to participate in the discussion with Wikia about this change, please go to: community:User_blog:Dopp/Updates to How We Search.

czechout ☎ ✍ 13:59: Mon 07 May 2012

Update: There is something we can do about it, after all.

Those wishing to basically restore the functionality of the search bar as it used to be can do so with personal .js code.

Go to community:Special:MyPage/global.js

Cut and paste the following code

importScriptPage('SearchGoButton/code.js', 'dev');

Save
Refresh your cache

You will then have the old way of searching (i.e., using the go button instead of the search button) returned to you. It will make your search bar provide you with a new icon, shaped like an arrow. When you press "return" in the search bar, it'll be assumed that you have pressed this new arrow icon, which will take you directly to the page you've entered in the search bar. If you'd like to use the new search functionality, you still can. All you have to do is type in your search text, then click the magnifying glass button.

czechout ☎ ✍ 21:31: Mon 07 May 2012