User talk:Svemir Brkic

SphinxSearch
Svemir, I have been attempting to implement SphinxSearch into my wiki. The instructions are not great for us poor windows users. How do I perform steps 5 & 6 on windows? Please let me know if this is not the correct location to ask this type question.

Steve Goble 16:17, 13 May 2008 (UTC)


 * Correct place is Extension talk:SphinxSearch‎. Windows version of Sphinx has certain limitations, but I never installed it on Windows myself. Some other people on that talk page apparently did. Svemir Brkic 16:44, 13 May 2008 (UTC)
 * THANKS, I'll try it. Steve Goble18:26, 14 May 2008 (UTC)
 * Svemir, sorry to bother you. I have seen no update and am not able to find a solution to my issue.  I am experiencing the blank page issue on a Windows/mediawiki installation and am unable to find a solution.  I cannot be sure it is installed fully because I am not able to figure out step 5 and 6.  Can you help?  Steve


 * It seems that someone did answer after all - I just reformatted the answer a little now. However, you do not really need the step 6 to get started. That is needed for updating the index on a regular basis, but you first need to do the steps 1 through 5. You should also search the forums on the sphinx site itself for any specific problems regarding getting sphinx itself to run on Windows. I still did not find the time to try it myself. Svemir Brkic 01:41, 30 May 2008 (UTC)
 * Thanks. That was actually me that answered it.  I so still have another issue, I will post it on that site.  Thanks so much for your prompt replies!

Using thttpd
Dear Svemir, I saw you comment that you are using thttpd to serve your static content which is exactly what I am trying to achieve. Please would you consider posting a guide as to how you did it. JohnShep 22:36, 21 March 2008 (UTC) Svemir Brkic 02:00, 22 March 2008 (UTC)
 * Install thttpd
 * Edit the configuration file, setting dir to your current $wgUploadDirectory (where images are) and port to something different than what your web server runs on:
 * thttpd needs all the files to be in the same folder, at least by default, and symlinks are not allowed. Move the skins folder into the folder specified by "dir" above
 * Just in case, create a symlink from the original skins location to the new one. You could also copy the folder instead of moving it, but then you have to maintain two copies. Whatever you do, keep it in mind next time you upgrade your wiki.
 * Set relevant paths in your LocalSettings.php (these settings may not work for you, as we have a very customized install.)

Many thanks for getting back to me :-) I shall add what I have done and maybe after tidying up this will make a good HowTo for other people.

I already use thttpd for static images and have it configured on a different IP on the same box bound to http://static.myserver.com In the root directory of thttpd I put a symlinks to the images and skins directories of mediawiki (don't want to mirror the whole structure as thttpd will serve php files as text) and therefore need the -nos option for thttpd. Also I found that thttpd runs a lot better with no log so -l /dev/null if logging is enabled sometimes it crashes during logrotate.

I edited skins/monobook/main.css and changed the url includes :- This looks to have been unnecessary and I shall try your method of the $wgStylePath instead.

Again many thanks, I really appreciate you helping me with this JohnShep 09:25, 22 March 2008 (UTC)

running Yslow
I made the style path change and ran Yslow, the number of requests to apache fell from 15 to 5 there are still three css files and one js file :-

http://www.boxrec.com/media/index.php?title=MediaWiki:Common.css&usemsgcache=yes&action=raw&ctype=text/css&smaxage=18000

http://www.boxrec.com/media/index.php?title=MediaWiki:Monobook.css&usemsgcache=yes&action=raw&ctype=text/css&smaxage=18000

http://www.boxrec.com/media/index.php?title=-&action=raw&gen=css&maxage=18000&smaxage=0

http://www.boxrec.com/media/index.php?title=-&action=raw&smaxage=0&gen=js&useskin=monobook

So there are still 5 times as many apache requests to generate the page as optimal, two of which are for empty files :-(

JohnShep 11:34, 22 March 2008 (UTC)


 * These exists to allow adding custom CSS via the wiki itself. If you do not need to support such a feature, you can add all custom CSS to one or more of the static files and comment out these lines in Monobook.php and other skins (if you use any.) If you do need to support such a feature and still want to serve that custom CSS via thttpd, you could use a hook to write out that CSS into static files each time those pages are edited. Svemir Brkic 13:29, 22 March 2008 (UTC)

OK great, I edited /includes/Skin.php and commented out two lines :- I edited /includes/SkinTemplate.php and commented out two lines :- which removed the two empty css files :-)

JohnShep 16:04, 23 March 2008 (UTC)

Sphinx on ProyectoFedora.org
Svemir, I implemented Sphinx on ProyectoFedora.org/wiki which is the spanish Fedora Project wiki. I've been modifying the way it displays the search page and results, and wanted to share these back with you. You can look at the changes here: http://proyectofedora.org/wiki/Especial:SphinxSearch

Thanks for your work! --Nushio 03:58, 8 July 2009 (UTC)


 * Cool, thanks! Feel free to add a link to your project on the extension pages, or I can do it later. Are there some changes or improvements you would like to contribute to the project? Svemir Brkic 12:50, 8 July 2009 (UTC)


 * Like I said, I made some visual changes, mainly to SphinxSearch_body.php to display the namespaces as in Wikipedia's search (Based on user feedback). I'm also starting to tweak the results page to display more relevant stuff, and moving things around, like formatting.

I'm still a n00b when it comes to hacking wikipedia extensions(and php, for that matter), so most of the code is pretty "dirty", but functional. But of course I'd love to contribute back to the project! --Nushio 22:15, 8 July 2009 (UTC)

Reshuffle the SphinxSearch documentation
The talk page does contain some useful information which are independent of any SphinxSearch release, so it might be a good idea to strip some of those topics, group them and create a subpage. Topics that seems relevant:
 * Extension_talk:SphinxSearch -- > Extension:SphinxSearch/Windows install
 * Extension_talk:SphinxSearch --> Extension:SphinxSearch/SQLite configuration
 * Extension_talk:SphinxSearch --> Extension:SphinxSearch/Search suggestions
 * merge Extension_talk:SphinxSearch
 * merge Extension_talk:SphinxSearch
 * Extension:SphinxSearch/Search weight configuration
 * merge Extension_talk:SphinxSearch
 * merge Extension_talk:SphinxSearch
 * merge Extension_talk:SphinxSearch
 * maybe a page about categories and namespaces merged into a subpage Extension_talk:SphinxSearch, Extension_talk:SphinxSearch

People always wonder about the differences of MW's search solutions, so on the main the page, a comparison matrix could describe those features in comparison (syntax support, performance, signle unique feature etc.).
 * Standard MW Search
 * Extension:EzMwLucene
 * Extension:Lucene-search
 * Extension:Zend_Search_Lucene_for_MediaWiki

Priority on the ToDo list would help people to see what comes next, I mean SPH_SORT_EXTENDED mode by @relevance and by number of times the page would be a killer and single out any feature against the other search engines available. PDF indexing could an item too as proposed by