For almost ten years now, the CompleteSearch interface has provided fast and convenient access to all of the metadata collected by dblp. Features like faceted search and fast search as you type made it a valuable asset to the computer science community. Since 2011, the service has been available under the easily memorizable domain dblp.org. With today's update of the dblp web system, the final stage of the integration of the CompleteSearch capabilities and its convenient search interface has concluded, and CompleteSearch is now an integral part of the dblp web system. At the same time, the domain dblp.org will now point directly to the dblp main site. This domain will play a more prominent role in the future URL and ID schemes of dblp.
The CompleteSearch engine and search interface has been developed and maintained by Hannah Bast (formerly at the Max Planck Institute for Informatics in Saarbrücken, now at the University of Freiburg, Germany). Although operated independently from the main dblp web site, the development of the search interface has always been in consultation with the dblp team. The layout of both web sites had been unified, and a preview of CompleteSearch's facets had been part of the classic dblp author pages. The interface provided a lot of search features that the rather basic search of the dblp site in Trier had been lacking (like an extremely fast and responsive search interface, searching by facets, search as you type, Boolean operators for complex queries, and more), and quickly became the community's first choice when searching publications within dblp.
With the overhaul of the dblp web system (which started about two years ago), the features of the old CompleteSearch interface have been integrated step by step into the dblp web systems hosted in Trier and Dagstuhl. This has been made possible by local back-end instances of the CompleteSearch engine that are now powering all of the search, filter, and browsing capabilities of the dblp web pages. With today's update, all major features of the interface have been integrated, as well as the former URL.
This does – of course – not mean that the search interface won't see further improvements and updates in the future. After all, dblp is a project that is continuously adapting and evolving. The improvement of the search engine's front end and back end will remain a collaboration between the dblp team in Trier and Hannah Bast's research group in Freiburg.
At the same time, today's update also means that the "modern-style" dblp web page layout is now established as standard for all aspects of the dblp web site, and that the old "classic-style" layout which is currently still available at some of the dblp pages will fade out with future updates.
For dblp, it is of utmost importance that every update improves the user experience and the utility of dblp for you (the computer scientists) in your daily work. Although any major update runs the risk of breaking existing features or disrupting established work habits, please be assured that this is never made intentionally. Hence, if you feel that an important feature of the old interface is missing, or if you encounter any problems when using the new search pages, please contact us under dblp-website@dagstuhl.de.