Forum Search

[DIYnot]

I'm pleased to announce that a new forum search is available.

You can find it here

If you have any difficulties, then please don't hesitate to let me know, either here or by email - [email protected].

 

[RF Lighting]

Would it be possible to search for words by a specific author?

It used to be handy if a question came up that I had already answered for another poster to link to it, without having to trawl through everyone elses post who has used the same word(s)

Also could you include a search for thread subject? For example if I search for picture of the week, no matches are found, yet I have posted loads of threads with this as the subject title.

 

[DIYnot]

Thanks for the feedback, good ideas, I'll see what I can do, it should be possible though.

One thing to note, the General Discussion forum is not included in the search index at the moment.

 

[Softus]

My personal preference would be for the results to be in reverse chronological order, i.e. most recent post/topic presented first.

Also, although the GUI is different, I'm not convinced that the underlying function is working all that well.
For example, I made a post today about a "Trevi Boost" shower valve, but if I search for "Trevi AND Boost", that topic doesn't appear in the results.

Also, the following four links all now seem to lead to the search form:

View posts since last visit
View your posts
View today's posts
View unanswered posts

 

[DIYnot]

The four functions will lead to the new search page at the moment until some things are updated so they produce the expected results.

The GUI is not the only change the whole underlying search engine is completely new and different (and hopefully better).

The reason your search for Trevi Boost returned no results is because the search index is built periodically, so does not include the most recent results.

Regarding, searching for reverse chronological order, this would mean receiving results whereby less close matches will appear before closer matches just because of the time issue, wouldn't it?

 

[DIYnot]

The four functions will lead to the new search page at the moment until some things are updated so they produce the expected results.

Update: sorted now

 

[Softus]

The four functions will lead to the new search page at the moment until some things are updated so they produce the expected results.

Okey dokey.

The GUI is not the only change the whole underlying search engine is completely new and different (and hopefully better).

Huzzah!

The reason your search for Trevi Boost returned no results is because the search index is built periodically, so does not include the most recent results.

That makes sense - thanks for explaining.

Regarding, searching for reverse chronological order, this would mean receiving results whereby less close matches will appear before closer matches just because of the time issue, wouldn't it?

Hmm. I see your point. That's a tough call. I guess the question is: what's the primary criterion?

Is it implicit in the need to search that users will be looking for recent posts, rather than ancient ones? Or vice versa? Or will we be looking for our own posts? It's a blooming minefield, and of course you can't please all of the people all of the time.

 

[DIYnot]

A quick update; a problem meant that searches containing numbers would return no results, so if your search has contained a number and returned zero results this is why. This is now resolved.

 

[DIYnot]

Another update, the 'keyword search by author' now works.

Example:

To search for any posts that contain the word picture by author DIYnot, search for :

picture author:diynot

 

[Diyisfun]

Another update, the 'keyword search by author' now works.

Example:

To search for any posts that contain the word picture by author DIYnot, search for :

picture auhor:diynot

OR BETTER STILL

picture author:diynot ...

 

[DIYnot]

oops (corrected!)

 

[ninebob]

Mr Admin sir, this is still broken!

I wanted to reply to a post made by markie, here: //www.diynot.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=90762 , by referencing some posts made by me some time ago about smoking. The new search function is unclear, because your instructions in this topic suggest that what I need to type is:

smoking author:ninebob

but the instructions in the search page itself suggest:

smoking author:"ninebob"

However, with or without the quotes, it returns no results.

What's up?

(edit: just checked the "old fashioned" way, looking through all my posts via my profile and there are definitely posts with the word "smoking", example here: //www.diynot.com/forums/viewtopic.php?p=504285#504285 )

 

[DIYnot]

Hi ninebob,

Either of the two options you typed above should have worked. The reason you are not finding anything is because the General Discussion forum is not currently included in the search index. The 100K messages not indexed from General Discussion considerably increases the speed it takes to perform a search. I hope to come to a solution that will allow for the inclusion of General Discussion eventually, but at the moment unfortunately not

 

[CAWORK]

Never can find anything, doesnt work properly.

I much preferred the other way of been able to search.

Sorry, not happy with it.

 

[DIYnot]

Can you elaborate with an example? How did you use the previous search, what things do you miss. Considering the amount of negative feedback I constantly received about the previous search I am surprised it is missed so much.