Last modified: 2014-02-12 23:46:00 UTC
This was pointed out by @srikanthlogic on irc If you search for "Madras" on the mobile site the top result is Chennai. Searching for the same term on the desktop site shows the top result as Madras. This could be quite confusing to someone who is unfamiliar with the name Chennai. Expected: Searching for Chennai should show Chennai as label Searching for Madras should show Madras as label Both when clicked should take the user to the Chennai page.
The difference is due to the desktop site using opensearch results in json and the mobile site using xml
Specifically: OpenSearchXML extension expands redirects, while the base JSON-based opensearch response doesn't. IIRC this was added on OpenSearchXML because with the extra description and thumbnail things fit better with the expanded title, while just getting raw suggestions back makes more sense giving you the thing that matches what you're typing better. (The plain JSON return in core doesn't do thumbnails or descriptions/extracts.)
Brion Vibber thanks for the history. That does make a lot of sense. I know that descriptions are planned on being used at a later date [1], [2] [1] http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Mobile_design/Full-screen_search [2] http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/File:Mobile_min_C.png Will leave this ticket open as it is a problem in the mean time until the above is realised.
This doesn't seem to be a problem any more - searching for Madras Madras appears as the top result. Thus closing. I suspect moving to JSON from XML solved this problem.
