Odoo Changelog — 2024-03-01

Friday, March 1, 2024

3 changes · saas-17.1

Improvements(3)

Enhancements to existing features

[IMP] point_of_sale: use Smith-Waterman algorithm for fuzzy lookup

Coresaas-17.1point_of_saleMedium

This update enhances the speed and accuracy of product and partner searches within Point of Sale. The new search algorithm, based on the Smith-Waterman algorithm, reduces irrelevant results and prioritizes exact matches, leading to a better user experience. Additionally, search results are now displayed in the order of the search query, increasing relevance.

Original PR description

Before this commit, the fuzzyLookup function from the web was used, which had some issues when users searched for exact terms to find products or partners with a limited number of characters. It often showed irrelevant items, which was confusing for the users.

With this commit, a new fuzzy lookup based on the Smith-Waterman algorithm for local sequence alignment is implemented. Also it improves the search accuracy by giving a bonus when the exact term is found in a text.

Additionally, the product search results are now displayed based on the search order, instead of being sorted by the product name. This change makes the search results more relevant to the user's search query.

opw-3766742

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#search#product#partner#fuzzy lookup

[FW][IMP] website_forum: add lastmod in sitemap for forum post URLs

PR #155976

Coresaas-17.1website_forum

This update adds ‘lastmod’ attributes to forum post URLs in the website sitemap. This helps search engines like Google efficiently crawl and index our forum content, improving its visibility. While complex date tracking is difficult across the website, this targeted approach focuses on the forum, providing a reliable way to signal content freshness.

Original PR description

The best you can help those crawler, the better. The sitemap `lastmod` attribute, despite not being fully respected and trusted by crawlers, is one of the way you can still try to help them.

For website.pages, it's already done. But for controllers, it's not an easy thing to do as we have no way to automatically figure what are the relevant records/fields to look at to know the last update date. For instance, on the event pages, some pages content are mostly stored inside an `ir.ui.view`, but the title, hours etc are part of the event itself.
We can't just say "we take the last write_date of the record", it's wrong in 2 ways:
- The first one I just explained where we wouldn't be able to easily get all the elements part of the page rendering and would miss a possible element write_date, leaving an outdated date in `lastmod`.
- Then, there is another issue (which is more problematic in stable): the `write_date` is often updated for non website related purposes. For instance, on /partners/<partner>, we wouldn't be able to use the write date on odoo.com as the partners shown there (having a grade) are update every weeks in average, because of many fields, for instance: commission_plan_id, partner_weight, grade_id, ...

Still, there is a quick win possible in stable about forum posts which are not impacted by the 2 issues explained above:
- There is a dedicated `last_activity_date` field which is updated only when relevant information are modified. We can ensure to show a date which is not updated too frequently for no reason.
- All the forum.post information displayed on the page are stored inside the forum.post itself.

This commit is thus adding the `lastmod` on forum.post URLs in the sitemap in hope of not making Google waste time on (very) old posts.

Note: the `lastmod` has to be trustworthy and correct, if you set wrong
or outdated info inside it, Google won't trust you/it anymore.

Forward-Port-Of: odoo/odoo#155197

[FW][IMP] website: industry input should have a placeholder

PR #156090

Coresaas-17.1website

This update adds a placeholder to the industry selection field on the website creation process. Previously, users were unsure of what information to enter, leading to potential confusion. This simple addition provides a helpful hint, streamlining the website setup for our customers.

Original PR description

-User might not know what they going to type in, this commit add a placeholder in the input of industry selection to give a hint for user when in website creation

Description of the issue/feature this PR addresses:

Current behavior before PR:

Desired behavior after PR is merged:




---
I confirm I have signed the CLA and read the PR guidelines at www.odoo.com/submit-pr

Forward-Port-Of: odoo/odoo#155862

#website#user experience#improvement

Before this commit, the fuzzyLookup function from the web was used, which had some issues when users searched for exact terms to find products or partners with a limited number of characters. It often showed irrelevant items, which was confusing for the users. With this commit, a new fuzzy lookup based on the Smith-Waterman algorithm for local sequence alignment is implemented. Also it improves the search accuracy by giving a bonus when the exact term is found in a text. Additionally, the product search results are now displayed based on the search order, instead of being sorted by the product name. This change makes the search results more relevant to the user's search query. opw-3766742 --- I confirm I have signed the CLA and read the PR guidelines at www.odoo.com/submit-pr

When a crawler (eg Googlebot) come to visit your website, it grants you a limited amount of time and ressources, it's called "Crawler budget". If you have millions of URLs, it won't go through each one of them in a single go. The best you can help those crawler, the better. The sitemap `lastmod` attribute, despite not being fully respected and trusted by crawlers, is one of the way you can still try to help them. For website.pages, it's already done. But for controllers, it's not an easy thing to do as we have no way to automatically figure what are the relevant records/fields to look at to know the last update date. For instance, on the event pages, some pages content are mostly stored inside an `ir.ui.view`, but the title, hours etc are part of the event itself. We can't just say "we take the last write_date of the record", it's wrong in 2 ways: - The first one I just explained where we wouldn't be able to easily get all the elements part of the page rendering and would miss a possible element write_date, leaving an outdated date in `lastmod`. - Then, there is another issue (which is more problematic in stable): the `write_date` is often updated for non website related purposes. For instance, on /partners/<partner>, we wouldn't be able to use the write date on odoo.com as the partners shown there (having a grade) are update every weeks in average, because of many fields, for instance: commission_plan_id, partner_weight, grade_id, ... Still, there is a quick win possible in stable about forum posts which are not impacted by the 2 issues explained above: - There is a dedicated `last_activity_date` field which is updated only when relevant information are modified. We can ensure to show a date which is not updated too frequently for no reason. - All the forum.post information displayed on the page are stored inside the forum.post itself. This commit is thus adding the `lastmod` on forum.post URLs in the sitemap in hope of not making Google waste time on (very) old posts. Note: the `lastmod` has to be trustworthy and correct, if you set wrong or outdated info inside it, Google won't trust you/it anymore. Forward-Port-Of: odoo/odoo#155197

-User might not know what they going to type in, this commit add a placeholder in the input of industry selection to give a hint for user when in website creation Description of the issue/feature this PR addresses: Current behavior before PR: Desired behavior after PR is merged: --- I confirm I have signed the CLA and read the PR guidelines at www.odoo.com/submit-pr Forward-Port-Of: odoo/odoo#155862