Re: [Ayatana-dev] Searching for applications, keywords and synonyms

[Dylan McCall <dylanmccall@xxxxxxxxx>]

> On Mon, Jan 3, 2011 at 5:04 PM, Mark Shuttleworth <mark@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>> MPT is worth talking to, as he will have good thoughts about how we can
>> get a rich base of textual data for the search. Anything in the Dash
>> applies pretty much directly to Ubuntu Software Centre too :-) so it's
>> worth chatting to MPT and the developers of USC.

Here's my latest invention :b
http://menukeywords.appspot.com/

That's the quick prototype for the little web app / survey thing I was
thinking of earlier. (I just shared it with MPT, too, in an email, so
he might have some thoughts). Pretty simple start which could be grown
in a few directions. Under the hood it has a database with a bunch of
applications I had installed on my system at the time. (And, of
course, it stores all the words people think of to describe those
applications).
We can manipulate the database to extract all kinds of information. In
particular, I think it would be interesting to see how certain
keywords distribute over different categories. It could also help to
identify where problems lie with the idea. (Are the categories
descriptive enough? Do they meet peoples' immediate expectations? Are
some apps misusing them, or not using them when they could be?)
In the final thing, the set of applications should probably be a lot
smaller; just stuff installed by default or featured in Software
Centre.

As it is, I estimate I could trick about ten people to enter a few
keywords for about three applications. (That's the point where you get
a cake recipe and run off to the nearest microwave in excitement).
There are probably lots of ways this could work better and be more
interesting (maybe to turn that ten into twenty), so if anyone has
thoughts or suggestions I'd be thrilled.


Dylan