Online Documentation Search Functionality Deficiency

Templates & Documentation Documentation
1

This has been an issue for years at this point and it’s something I run into constantly.

Searching the scripting API online does not properly match partial names. In particular, searching for words in the middle of or at the end of a method name will not return all results.

Examples using AssetModificationProcessor

  • Searching for Asset or AssetModification will return AssetModificationProcessor
  • Searching for Modification will NOT return AssetModificationProcessor
  • Searching for Processor will NOT return AssetModificationProcessor

This makes it difficult to search for certain types of API. If I want to find all Attributes exposed in the API, I can’t simply search for Attribute and expect to get any API with Attribute in the name (HeaderAttribute doesn’t show up, for example). As a side note, it’s also quite inconsistent whether attributes names actually end in the word Attribute as is fairly standard in C#. About half of them do.

This is an extremely longstanding issue with no real response from Unity. This has been brought up through both the feedback mechanism and through bug reports yet there seems to be no intention to address a simple but problematic issue.

May 2015 Feedback: https://feedback.unity3d.com/suggestions/improve-search-functionality-in-online-documentation
September 2015 Bug - 716311
July 2016 Bug - 806820

Is there a realistic chance of this being addressed in the near future?

2

Hi Sycobob… that’s valid points to raise. And raised some years ago. I’ll raise this to them again for you. Can’t promise what will actually happen. :frowning:

3

Maybe you should raise the point that you’re apparently desperately short on web developers?

4

Thanks for the nudge Graham-Dunnett.

Baste, probably not a super productive comment.

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