sometimes, dealing with a specific problem, I remember that <insert your name here> wrote a meditation about it which I happened to stumble upon, but I don't remember its title. How to get at it? There's Super Search you say.

Ok, I go there, leave "Match text containing" text box empty, "Match authors" gets <insert your name here>, then "Search the following sections: [X] Meditations", further down "[X] Don't include replies" has to be set, then I hit "Search" and I please am patient after submitting my search.

But then, there's the showtype parameter to Perl Monks User Search, except that there's no combo box where you could select e.g. "Meditations" from. You have to add the parameter to the URL as e.g. &showtype=perlmeditation to constrain the search to Meditations.

With a Node Type combo box in Perl Monks User Search, all I had to do is enter the monk name, select the Node Type and hit "Search".

I wonder why it is not there. Adding a combo box for Node types to constrain the search would be trivial (just a bit of code reordering). The layout of the paramenter table could be

   Author: |________________|                     show |__50| nodes
 Order by: |_Newest_First_|v|              starting at |___0| .
Node type: |_All_Types____|v| [ ] Show categorised Q&A (Why?) |Search|
[download]

which doesn't increase the vertical table size.

Of course, as ysth notes, "adding additional filters means the sort-by-reputation becomes even more revealing of node reputations than at present" - but would that be bad somehow?

Has this been proposed before? Is this proposition a desirable change? What do you think?

update: Patch submitted and (after killing bugs) applied. Thanks, tye. See What's New.

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