some ideas for open discussion

Hi! In case anyone is interested in my ideas to provide better user experience and / or take load off the server, here are two, which are open for discussion: 1. Codename: onehalf. Cut the request numbers for URL shortcuts in half

    - include the found manual page or webpage in
      error/index.php instead of redirecting to it

    - the problem with this is that relative links will not work

    - no problem, we need to add a <base href=""> to all the pages
      (fixable in layout.inc). just this base need to point to the
      right page everytime

      how this can be done automatically is a good question, we can
      fool the browsers with "$MYSITE/webdirname/index.php" on all
      pages so the relative links will work (they only need the
      directory)

This way URL shortcuts will only mean *one* apache request, and not more, while any clicks will lead to a proper page on that manual page. Possible problems:

    - search engines will store these in indexes (those shortcuts
      which are linked to from somewhere)
    - local search indexing may have problems with this, though this
      is easy to overcome
    - includes in the manual PHP files should keep using the
      include_path, otherwise they won't work

2. Codename: local search. Use htdig for searching if properly set up. Some facts:

     - php.net has [had] htdig improperly set up
     - some mirrors also have htdig improperly set up
     - htdig results are IMHO better the public search engine results
       if a properly set up htdig is used
     - these results will be the same for all mirrors regardless of
       how deeply they are indexed in public search engines
     - many mirror maintainers already invested significant time in
       setting up, troubleshooting, and sometimes even fine tuning theit
       local search support
     - mirrors without search support used ch.php.net for external
       searching, and results pointed back to the originating server

Problem:

     - php.net cannot take the load of htdig

Solution:

     - keep the good old way of using ch.php.net for searching if a
       mirror has no support for local search
     - redirect to ch.php.net from www.php.net, but provide a
       different originating server adress, fooling ch.php.net to
       direct the user to a different server instead of php.net

Note:

     - php.net already has code to choose a close mirror in case of high
       load, so it can provide that address as "originating server" when
       redirecting searches to ch.php.net
     - the maintainers of ch.php.net need to agree to this before this
       can be implemented [CCd]

Result:

     - the good old search engine experience
     - the many times spent on htdig setup across the globe is
       not worthless
     - every mirror is searcheable, with the same good results
       for all mirrors
     - there will never be search results pointing to php.net,
       driving users away from the main mirror

I am not sure that any of these two ideas can help you, but I hope they can help make the user service better, and that is why I have been here for a long time now. I also hope that reading this you may realize that others may have ideas too, and that may help optimize the time *you* work on php.net as there may be ideas which need less work, are based on already existing infrastructure or are simply a very different way of implementing things, and therefore the time spent by you on the original idea would be useless. I am here for discussions, and I am not going to perform major modifications before talking about it in the open. Goba