hi,

This is a pretty long ask.

Can the 'Quick Search' feature be made configurable for Admin to by default, only display 'Page' type and NOT Attachments ?  

Default search result is displaying - output with docs (which are system generated), and our customers don't have any login creds. It is open to public. However, search result, gives word doc (which are attachments), instead of displaying 'Pages' in the search. The pages are displayed down-later in the search results.

Issue 

Customers end up clicking on Doc attachments, and it asks for login. It should simply display the wiki pages and NOT the Word docs in search. 

I understand there is an option to Filter by Page Type in Quick Search. However, customers are not aware about this option and they simply use the basic search, which creates this issue. 

Feature Request

Can this option/mechanism to only display 'Page type' by default be made configurable for Admin ? Doing so, will help us to configure the Quick Search (instead of customers changing it) ++ and customize it to only display Wiki page types and NOT Attachments.

Humble request, if this feature can be prioritized. 

Live search issue

Secondly, did also try 'Live Search' and changed the Type to Page. However, in spite of changing the Page Type for Live Search, there also it displays attachments as Word documents. It is not working as desired.   

Pls check on this as well. 

Thanks, 

Tariq

Any updates on this 15 year old request?

With the previous quicksearch it was possible to influence the defaults using custom JS, but since the quick search received an update, this is no longer possible.

Agreed, we also would like to see an option (UI or server config files) to make the search return only type:pages by default. 

+1. We'd really like to see a quick search configuration to only return 'type: pages' by default. Currently it returns comments, blog posts, images and files which cause page results to sit much lower in the result list.

Voting in the hope to revive the old issue. 

We have both internal and external spaces, would be a time-saver with a configurable quick search.

Thanks!

We need the ability to configure Confluence to default the Search engine to search "All Pages".
Our users need to get to reference material and KB articles, not images and attachments.
Thanks!

+1 Just want to add a keyword search for how-to articles. It is weird to display all search results of the space. 

+1 - New search is terrible and no configuration options.  The first search I did brought up ALL attachments??  The quick search used to show categories: pages, attachments and spaces in 3 lists that were each limited in size.  This was much more useful.  Users are rarely searching for attachments.

+1 – We need this as well.  Our users are hitting on attachments from historical blog posts, and it's causing some confusion.  We do not want to start modifying blog posts.  We're prefer that they are defaulted to 'Pages' in their search, and are forced to manually select 'Blog' or 'Attachment' if they want that included. 

Thanks.  Hope this is the vote that makes this happen. 

I'd like a way to change the default text that shows up in the header search box, so that it can be set to something like "Search all spaces." If this is possible already, please send links to instructions!

A space is often the working CONTEXT of a team. Searching in all spaces by default (and leaving it up to each user to set a space filter) is therefore no good starting point. In large Confluence instances with several hundred spaces and hundreds of thousands of content objects, the global search scope doesn't work very well. Enterprise customers and high performance teams need a better solution!

I suggest to implement both global and space-level settings to define the default search scope / filters.

+1

The new search function includes too much stuff and several users have been complaining about it being more difficult to find things now after the new search function came out.

We should be able to set default settings globally (f.ex it will default only search for space and page, and then they have to customize the search if they want to look for attachments instead).

Also, before you could search for f.ex a page with IP ranges, where the page name was 192.168.0.0/24 and it would show up as you type, now it has to match exactly or I have to use wildcard to see it.

+1

+1 to this. Now at 100 votes. Let's hope that forms some sort of trigger.

+1 restricting link suggestions is very important to us. Even just a simple divide between "This space links" and "Other spaces links"

+1

+1

Just installed and tested Confluence 6.4.0 since support of Confluence 5.9 will be ended by the end of November this year. I've tried all alternatives for the Quick search limited to a single space (livesearch macro in sidebar, header or pages) but non off these are an alternative in a sense that the search field is always visible. What are the alternatives, keep using Confluence 5.9.4 without support or start using multiple Confluence sites with a single space per site?

I find it difficult to understand the Confluence release policy regarding existing functionality, especially since the quick search (limited to a single space) is currently (in Confluence 5.9.4) one of the most used and appreciated function.

Anxiously awaiting any update on this topic

Does anyone know how we can get the attention of Atlassian developers? It seems nobody is paying attention to this thread though there is considerable interest and it can't be hard to implement.

+1

This is a weakness in Confluence and has been for 10 years (as pointed out by Mark). My users often complain about this and hence the documentation theme search has been used.

Based on the fact that its been open for so long with no progress just the occasional flurry of interest from the customers (like me) I think we have little chance of seeing this feature. We must remember that Confluence is not an OSS project and governance is solely in the hands of Atlassian and despite customer feed back they clearly don't consider this, like many others, an important enough feature.

It's a pity that Atlassian doesn't seem to be that interested in making seemingly simple fixes like this. There are so many fundamental issues that have been open for many years - like the PDF export issues.

I agree that the ability to control this globally would make a big difference.

Thanks @Melanie & @Bart. We've got to get Atlassian to fix this ASAP. Ten years waiting for this basic functionality is unacceptable. And since it works in other themes it can't be hard to resolve! Easy fix => lots of happy customers. Quick win!

+1
This is a MUST have for our users.

As a national grid operator we use Confluence within several departmens. In this case there are high risks introduced (for grid operations) if the quick search can not be limited to a single space.

This item has been open for ten years! (Created:31/Jan/2006 3:25 PM)

When is someone at Atlassian going to pick this up?

I agree. We need this feature. I can't use the Documentation theme (for other reasons), which means that searches from the toolbar give all sorts of irrelevant results. This makes Confluence look silly to many end users.

I would also like to see this feature implemented ASAP. We have to use the Documentation Theme as a workaround (via Space Admin -> Look and Feel -> Themes -> Documentation Theme -> Configure Theme -> Limit search results to the current space). But these is being phased out.

This is a MUST for our users - otherwise they will get completely irrelevant searches from other spaces.

For us, not having this feature (after the documentation theme is dropped) is a disaster.

(The workaround of creating another search field with a macro is also not a viable solution - otherwise users will see two search fields which is confusing.)

+1
This feature is an absolute must now that the Documentation theme is deprecated.

+1
This is required for us once the Documentation Theme is removed.

If Atlassian is getting rid of the Documentation theme, they really must add this feature first.

+1 This seems like a fundamental feature and would love to see it.

This is an essential feature and I continue to be amazed that it isn't present, then again it appears that atlassian are ploughing their own furrow regardless of customer feedback
+1 from me but little expectation

Well said Tim and Nicholas! I agree that space specific search via quick search should be a fundamental feature of Confluence, and that space admins should be given the option to limit search to their space. Having the space specific search option around allows EVERYONE to win, and who doesn't like that? You have my +1 vote for this issue.

FYI - End of Support Announcements officially say Documentation theme will be removed in Confluence 6.0.

In related issue CONF-38256 (Plans to remove the documentation theme) many are asking for space-specific search config.

In our instance, The People want this feature. It is our #1 FAQ after a 5.x upgrade. The workarounds using Livesearch macro in page or in the footer/header/sidebar are difficult to add compared to a checkbox, and the double search boxes are inelegant for the user.

If you would like to enable space admins to limit search to their space, using the default theme, please vote for this issue to show Atlassian.

I've got bad news for folks. My track record is that if I report or find a feature like this that has been around for many years w/o an official reply...it usually ends badly. (i.e. "won't fix")

For my part, I'd just like the default theme to have a config setting for searching only the current space - just like the Documentation them.

Why not just switch to the Documentation theme? I don't believe the Doc theme gets as much love from the Atlassians as the Default Theme.

I want my cake and eat it too.

Hey Atlassians – how about some love for this issue...with at least an official response? The People deserve some love.

space specific search via quick search is a pretty fundamental feature which should be available out of the box, find it hard to believe that this still cannot be achieved within Confluence by default.

There is this option in the Documentation theme: “limit search results to the current space”.

Make sure it is set up for the specific space.

I recommend putting the space-specific quick search in a sidebar and the global search in the top navigation. Easy change if you're using the Documentation Theme, less so if you're using another theme that doesn't have a sidebar. But then again you can always add the sidebar first.

You can add a space-specific quick search using the livesearch macro or instantsearch macro. Note that these don't work with the same logic as the quicksearch so neither is a perfect solution, but it's better than nothing eh?

Edit: That said, having a simple drop-down box next to the quick search field having the options

• Current space
• All spaces
• Favourite spaces
• Global spaces
• Personal spaces
  would be excellent.

When quick-searching in multiple spaces, it would be useful to see the space title (or the first X characters of it in case of a long title) next to or under each search result. This helps to distinguish between identically named content in different spaces. (Would be very helpful on confluence.atlassian.com... )

Also, making the Documentation Theme sidebar search a space-specific quicksearch by default would be another great improvement.

It's not only about search!!
In Confluence V3 it's also a nice quickstart menue option, just like in newer operating systems as Win7. More and more users expect the possibility to do searches AND "quick menue jumps" from this former search field.

So it would be a great option to limit the search (and menue function) to ONE space!

Thanks in advance,
-daniel

It would be great to have a User Preference option to change the default search from Global Spaces to All Spaces.

Jared,

THANK YOU!!! I've been trying to come up with this answer for a while - I only had one site that wanted the search limited out of over 300. This helped a TON.

-Mary

We had a single space which we wanted the search scope to be limited only to that space (itself).

The "Content Formatting Macros" includes a "search-box" macro which can take a spacekey as an argument. However, this only works in the body of a wiki page.

I wanted to modify the layout search box. After trying to find real documentation on the "QuickSearch" function, I ended up just use plain old HTML which works fine.

Here's the HTML, which hopefully won't get mangled:

<form method="POST" action="/dosearchsite.action" name="searchForm" style="padding: 1px; margin: 1px">
<input type="hidden" name="quickSearch" value="true" />
<input type="hidden" name="searchQuery.spaceKey" value="spacekey" />
<input type="text" accessKey="s" name="searchQuery.queryString" size="25"/>
<input type="submit" value="Search Space Name"/>
</form>

Replace the value of "spacekey" in the searchQuery.spaceKey hidden item.

This should be something that can be set in the Space Administration section also, so that the global setting could be to search all spaces but individual spaces could be set to search only within the current space.

This, along with an exact match option like Wikipedia has, would make all the wiki doubters at my company finally love Confluence.

This is definitely starting to also be a big problem for us: the volume of complaints about there being 'too much stuff' in Confluence is increasing exponentially as the number of spaces increases in our installation. The ability to immediately search within a single space would be invaluable in addressing these concerns.