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HN has a great and I mean absolutely great search feature via Algolia https://hn.algolia.com https://hn.algolia.com and this particular question keeps springing

HN has a great and I mean absolutely great search feature via Algolia https://hn.algolia.com https://hn.algolia.com and this particular question keeps springing up every now and then, no one seems to use the feature despite the search bar being at the bottom of every page. Edit: removed "inb4 downvotes".

atom_enger 10y ago
I never knew it was at the bottom and I use this site all the time. Thanks for pointing that out. However, it does raise some questions about the UI in this case. Can't we put the search box up in the header where people expect it to be?
- throw_away_777 10y ago
  Indeed I also didn't know about this. In general I don't think it is easy to find information about how to use hacker news, everything is hidden in weird places.
- Mandatum 10y ago
  I only tend to use search now and again, since it's not always used I prefer it not take up initial screen space. Also I think the majority of HN users are able to figure out a way of searching this site relatively easy, I see it as a non-issue.
  - teapot01 10y ago
    I think the happy medium would be to add a link to search in the top bar but not the actual search bar.
- garyfirestorm 10y ago
  I tend to run Google searches like these - site:news.ycombinator.com 'AI'
matthudson 10y ago
HN search has been one of the most helpful resources (among many) to my personal and professional life. +1 for that alone. It sowed the seeds for a career path (went from a yoeman replaceable scripter to a guy with a reliable paycheck that can comment with angst on HN.) HN-algolia is snappy. I've been developing a behavior where I default to searching HN before I search google (for better or worse). Also, I really apologize for this but, please don't say things like: "Time for me to get down voted to oblivion". You've spoken your mind (and helpfully so) with the end of your comment (which is otherwise good). Self-referencing how one expects comment voting to go is a behavior that I wish people would refrain from. It makes the comment "about" itself --- rather than the content. It's a primer that stems from perceptions about how it will be interpreted by the community, which in turn manipulates voting behavior about the comment. (<insert-discussion> voting systems on community forums. is voting itself a good system? </insert-discussion>).
loader 10y ago
Whelp, I just learned HN has a search box!
BrandonWatson 10y ago
Reading the responses here, I wonder how a revamped HN homepage would look like if there was a search bar at the top of the page. The user story for search has been solved. What hasn't been solved, it sounds like, is feature discoverability.
donretag 10y ago
I actually do not care for the Algolia search functionality. The previous search worked far better. Algolia has suggestion features built-in which cannot be disabled (synonyms? autocorrect?) which will return content that perhaps does not much what the user really wants if they want an exact search. This behavior is especially important to developers since our terminology does not match the English (the language of HN) vocabulary many times. Try searching for the product "logsene", which is simply an example. Quoting words, such as what Google uses, does not work all the time.
0x54MUR41 10y ago
That's true. If you need books as your learning resources, I would recommend to search it via Hacker News Book [1]. That site scrapes books based on the shared links on HN comment and ranks them. [1]: http://hackernewsbooks.com/ http://hackernewsbooks.com/
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
- garyfirestorm 10y ago
  This is amazing! thanks!
- _jdams 10y ago
  Great resource thanks. Would love to learn how to make a website like this. Not necessarily detecting books, but detecting [anything] and counting, but with the scraping features, still.

atom_enger 10y ago

I never knew it was at the bottom and I use this site all the time. Thanks for pointing that out. However, it does raise some questions about the UI in this case. Can't we put the search box up in the header where people expect it to be?

throw_away_777 10y ago
Indeed I also didn't know about this. In general I don't think it is easy to find information about how to use hacker news, everything is hidden in weird places.
Mandatum 10y ago
I only tend to use search now and again, since it's not always used I prefer it not take up initial screen space. Also I think the majority of HN users are able to figure out a way of searching this site relatively easy, I see it as a non-issue.
- teapot01 10y ago
  I think the happy medium would be to add a link to search in the top bar but not the actual search bar.
garyfirestorm 10y ago
I tend to run Google searches like these - site:news.ycombinator.com 'AI'

matthudson 10y ago

HN search has been one of the most helpful resources (among many) to my personal and professional life. +1 for that alone. It sowed the seeds for a career path (went from a yoeman replaceable scripter to a guy with a reliable paycheck that can comment with angst on HN.) HN-algolia is snappy. I've been developing a behavior where I default to searching HN before I search google (for better or worse). Also, I really apologize for this but, please don't say things like: "Time for me to get down voted to oblivion". You've spoken your mind (and helpfully so) with the end of your comment (which is otherwise good). Self-referencing how one expects comment voting to go is a behavior that I wish people would refrain from. It makes the comment "about" itself --- rather than the content. It's a primer that stems from perceptions about how it will be interpreted by the community, which in turn manipulates voting behavior about the comment. (<insert-discussion> voting systems on community forums. is voting itself a good system? </insert-discussion>).

loader 10y ago

Whelp, I just learned HN has a search box!

BrandonWatson 10y ago

Reading the responses here, I wonder how a revamped HN homepage would look like if there was a search bar at the top of the page. The user story for search has been solved. What hasn't been solved, it sounds like, is feature discoverability.

donretag 10y ago

I actually do not care for the Algolia search functionality. The previous search worked far better. Algolia has suggestion features built-in which cannot be disabled (synonyms? autocorrect?) which will return content that perhaps does not much what the user really wants if they want an exact search. This behavior is especially important to developers since our terminology does not match the English (the language of HN) vocabulary many times. Try searching for the product "logsene", which is simply an example. Quoting words, such as what Google uses, does not work all the time.

0x54MUR41 10y ago

That's true. If you need books as your learning resources, I would recommend to search it via Hacker News Book [1]. That site scrapes books based on the shared links on HN comment and ranks them. [1]: http://hackernewsbooks.com/ http://hackernewsbooks.com/

deleted 10y ago
[deleted]
garyfirestorm 10y ago
This is amazing! thanks!
_jdams 10y ago
Great resource thanks. Would love to learn how to make a website like this. Not necessarily detecting books, but detecting [anything] and counting, but with the scraping features, still.