I was just about to make a post but thought that my question has probably been asked before so decided to search.
I'm sure it's not news but the search doesn't work very well to do this. I get that it's a limitation of the forum software.
Is it possible to add google search somewhere on the site. My understanding is that it's a few lines of code to add a search box and then you can tell it to only index this site.
As an ex software developer I get that it's possibly not that easy to add something external to the site without breaking it. Just wondered if it's been thought of and if it's a possiblility.
Meanwhile I'm off to ask a question that I'm sure has been asked before.
Comments
I'll freely admit that I've never managed to get it to work effectively. Rather than have a few hundred/thousand people fiddle about with it individually, wouldn't it be more efficient to post some "how to" guidance?
[PS]
Functionality aside, the UI isn't really intuitive, so a bit of a re-design of that would probably help quite a bit too.
As for "when am I ready?" You'll never be ready. It works in reverse, you become ready by doing it. - pmbomb
The advanced search is actually way more capable than Google for searching this site, because it has access to things like categories and dates. The only thing that doesn't seem to work well (and I don't fully understand why) is the username search in the option - it works perfectly well in the search field using advanced syntax.
Here are a couple of useful examples...
Search for all posts by me mentioning the Helix
Search for all ads for a Helix in the classifieds, most recent first
Note that to use the advanced syntax (in the first one), "Phrase Match" has to be set to "Extended".
Thanks. I'll start to use it more often now.
For something like searching the classifieds I would say:
- Go to the advanced search page.
- Choose "all" rather than "any" for the phrase match
- Select the relevant forum (for example "FX £")
- Order by "Most recent"
Optionally set the "newer than" fieldThat way, you can use all the operators from extended mode straight away..
Also, Recent First is plainly the most sensible default.
I'd tried using @digitalscream or @user=digitalscream or @user:digitalscream (and various other combinations), but never the simple @user digitalscream.
That's probably the sort of tip that is needed ...
That makes perfect sense.
I think on some sites "relevance" makes sense, but given that people are probably searching the classifieds more than anything else recent first a better default.
Ok, I've tried switching to the Full Site on the safari app which kinda works but not fully.
If I search for "Xotic sp comp", select the FX classifieds thread and sort by most recent it comes up with these results.
https://i.imgur.com/HoL9oeP.png
https://i.imgur.com/9icTGfk.png
However there is a thread created August 22nd which includes the key words "Xotic sp comp" but doesn't show in the search results, any idea or should I just put up and shut up?.......I expect probably the latter XD
https://i.imgur.com/c1sC2V1.png
*EDIT I did also try "Xotic sp compressor" and got the same results