Confused about search.conf in PROV vs PAW?

brucek

I'm trying to understand why I get different results for searches in PROV vs PAW and am having some confusion about search.conf.

In Prov, there is /app/conf/local/search.conf
that seems to share the format as PAW /app/conf/search.conf.

The PAW search.conf located in /themes/mytheme/conf seems to be involved in defining multisearch behavior.

What is the relationship between all these search.conf? It seems that the PAW /app/conf/search.conf serves a different purpose than the /themes/.... one. Does this mean in PAW there is no "local" copy of /app/conf/search.conf?

I assume this has nothing to do with search indexing?

Why would the two programs have different search results?

Thanks

monica

brucek in both Pawtucket and Providence when reading a configuration, it first looks in your theme, then in the inherited theme (usually default), then in app/conf/local then in app/conf. If you want to change any configuration in the app/conf/search.conf file for Pawtucket, it’s recommended to put it into your themes conf/search.conf.

behindicebergs

I'm just venturing a guess here so unless someone more experienced than me replies take this with a grain of salt:

Having different Providence and Pawtucket search.conf files would serve to differentiate the way in which cataloguers and the general public use search. My cataloguers need very specific things to be returned from a search so it's not the same as when someone is just browsing the Paw module and want to look at the collection more casually or without intent to do work there.

I guess making a local version of the pawtucket conf files would work, but I never tried it personally. I case of updating the system I guess it would be useful. In terms of Paw having two different search.conf files within itself, one within the themes folder, I don't know how exactly that interacts with the pawtucket app/conf file but I think it does indeed change the default behaviour to the one in your theme, although I wouldn't know how exactly. You could always A/B test changing one and then another search conf files in pawtucket to isolate what changes in config change your results.