Recognize eventID in circular search and link to synonym slug

[jracusin]

Description

Once synonym groups are enabled and backfilled (#2662, #2750, #2620), add logic in Circulars search bar such that when an eventID (with REGEX e.g. "GRB 123456A" and "GRB123456A") recognize it as an eventID, and link to appropriate synonym group slug.

Acceptance criteria

• recognize syntax for an eventID
• add REGEX to deal with variations on recognizing an eventID
• link to synonym group rather than perform a text search
• have some way to do a text search in case that's relevant, maybe using quotes, that doesn't link to the synonym group
• make the REGEX a variable that we can link to in documentation

[titodalcanton]

This issue sounds similar to a frustration I (and at least a few other people) have with the GRB circular search box. Apologies if that is not the case, then I will remove this comment and open a separate issue with it.

Quite often, I want to find all circulars for a given GRB, say GRB 220211A. So I type GRB 220211A into the search box, and I get this:

That does not look right: way too many results, and clearly many are not related to that GRB. So I try GRB220211A (no space) and I get another strange result (though somewhat better):

Then I ask someone who queries the GCN much more often than me, and I learn that I have to type only 220211A, and I get what seems the correct result:

Within a couple weeks, after fighting with a few unrelated search boxes on other websites, I forget how the GCN search box works, and the process repeats.

The gray text under the search box does not really help either. For example, if I search for Fermi GRB as it suggests, one of the results is https://gcn.nasa.gov/circulars/39087, which does not seem to have anything to do with a "Fermi GRB". This frustrates even more the people who try to do their due diligence and try to decipher the available instructions.

Personally I would find it much clearer if the search box was simply an exact text match on the circular title, with a short sentence under the box explaining just that. If the community actually needs a more complex/intelligent search algorithm, that could be a separate search box or option, like "Advanced search".

[joshuarwood]

I had a similar issue when trying to search for EP250108A. Searching for the string 250108 provided no results:

whereas searching for the full alert name without a space showed the correct results:

and adding a space to the name provided a lot of unrelated results:

I would suggest reclassifying this as a bug rather than an enhancement given the inconsistent behavior for relatively sensible search strings.