Wikimedia Bugzilla is closed!

At present, a search box is very limited. One can search for the exact text the user enters, and one can specify namespaces or a prefix.

This request is to allow for much more flexible searches, in what seems to be a trivial enhancement - the ability to specify a search template. Example:

searchtemplate = %% (intitle:Deletion OR intitle:Vandalism)
user input at inputbox: 
    thisandthat
actual search performed: 
    thisandthat (intitle:Deletion OR intitle:Vandalism)

searchtemplate = (sockpuppet* OR sock-puppet*) intitle:"%%"
user input at inputbox: 
    footballvandal
actual search performed: 
    (sockpuppet* OR sock-puppet*) intitle:"footballvandal"

The one check that's obvious is to check for accidental doubled quotation marks, if the searchtemplate contains "%%" (in quotes) and the search text also is quoted.

This would allow a wide range of specialized wiki searches, for example portals could could search for entered text on pages with a given text in the title.