Custom Hint Boxes for display at the Top of select Search Results Pages

[sosasees]

What's the problem this feature will solve?

When someone guesses the Name for a Topic that doesn’t exist in the Project, and then tries to Search for it in the Documentation, they can’t use the Search Results to find anything similar that does exist in the Project.

Describe the solution you'd like

Support for custom Hint Boxes that Documentation Contributors can add to Search Results Pages for select Keywords.

Alternative solutions

We could train a ML Model to improve Search Results but i believe that would backfire and make Search Results much worse. (I’m looking at you, Google and Bing AI)

I strongly prefer Contributors writing Hint Boxes because they would be much more reliable.
There would be much less Hint Boxes but they would be almost certainly relevant and correct, which is much more important.

Additional context

I discovered the Need for this Feature in a Project that uses Read the Docs:

godotengine/godot-docs#10707

[DevanshG0el]

Proposed Solution

Allow documentation contributors to define custom hint boxes associated with specific search keywords.

When a search query matches those keywords, the documentation system displays a hint box at the top of the search results page suggesting the relevant topic.

Example

Search query:

follow camera

Search results page:
Hint

Looking for Camera2D?

The Camera2D node provides functionality for making a camera follow a player or object.

[Read the Camera2D documentation]

The hint box appears above the standard search results.

Design Goals

Improve discoverability of documentation topics

Provide high-quality contributor-curated hints

Avoid reliance on machine learning

Maintain deterministic and predictable search behavior

Keep the system simple for maintainers

Possible Implementation

A simple configuration file could define mappings between keywords and hints.

Example configuration:

search_hints:

• keywords:

  • follow camera
  • player camera
  • tracking camera
    hint: "Looking for Camera2D? This node allows the camera to follow objects."
    link: "/classes/class_camera2d.html"

• keywords:

  • collision mask
  • hit detection
    hint: "You may want Collision Layers and Masks."
    link: "/tutorials/physics/physics_layers.html"

Search behavior:

User submits a query

Query is matched against defined keywords

If a match exists, a hint box is displayed above results

UI Example

Hint

You might be looking for: Camera2D

Camera2D allows the camera to automatically follow
a player or object.

[Open Camera2D documentation]

Search Results

• Camera2D — Class Reference
• Camera — General camera documentation
• Camera tutorial

@sosasees can i go ahead with this proposal ?

[sosasees]

This Design seems very good ✅

[DevanshG0el]

@sosasees can you assign this issue to me ?

[sosasees]

No, i do not have Permission to assign Issues in this Repository.

Of Course you can implement the Feature, even if you were never formally assigned to this Issue.