Taking a serious look at the Fast Search plug-in for Movable Type, which, by using a fulltext index for entries, promises (and, based on comments out there, fulfills) much faster searching than the built-in MT search. It also has some nice features like sorting by relevancy and highlighting search terms.
Only two problems I see:
- Currently, Fast Search only does entries, not comments. That would be troublesome, as there’s lots of content in the comments here that would become “invisible” (short of a Google search to site:hill-kleerup.org).
- It’s not currently supported under the MT 4.0 beta (though I’ve every reason to think it will be in the future).
It looks like it replaces the MT search functionality, which is unfortunate. If it didn’t, then I could have a “Fast Search” and “Normal Search” option for, say, this blog (which has tons of comments), while having just the “Fast Search” for some place like WIST.
I have a couple of questions in to the developer, so we’ll see how that goes.
Per the developer, MT4 compatibility is imminent, and it’s an adjunct to existing search, not a replacement.
So, most likely, I’ll install it here and see what happens. When I get a minute or twelve.