Search function

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Search function

Postby MeatPuppet » Mon Dec 09, 2013 11:42 am

I'm sure many people use the search bar all the time, perhaps even skipping the traditional clicking-on-categories-until-you-find-that-thing.

I see that when I try to search for words such as "me", "my", or "I", the site tells me that I'm a selfish prick, the words are too common, at least one word should be included, and that each word must be at least four characters long. When I try to look for "irc" to improve my interpersonal skills, the page simply says, "No suitable matches were found." The same goes for other queries such as "help".

Maybe showing a page like this article suggests might be more helpful. I'd like a bunch of suggestions to help me out when a search doesn't work out. If there was a standard no-matches page with a whole bunch of suggestions on why my search failed that would be nice. Some suggestions on what the suggestions might be:

  • Check your spelling
  • Your search is too common or too short. It must have at least one word that is four characters long
  • Your search is too specific. Try a simpler search or remove words
  • Try using synonyms
And so on. Maybe the site could detect whether a search is likely more of the short and common type or the specific type and customize the no-matches page as such, but I think having both suggestions on the same page wouldn't be too problematic.
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Last edited by MeatPuppet on Mon Dec 09, 2013 12:54 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Search function

Postby w00 » Mon Dec 09, 2013 12:01 pm

Wow, flash-backs, man!

From the link:

Ancient site wrote:This search engine covers this site only -- if you want to search the entire Web, use AltaVista, Google, HotBot or one of the other public search engines.

I remember using HotBot for a while.

Gawd, I bet a lot of you weren't even born yet.

/me goes off to sit in rocking chair and feel old



Anyway, yeah, it seems dumb that the search box doesn't re-appear, but searching for "I me my" gives:

PHP search wrote:The following words in your search query were ignored because they are too common words: i me my .
You must specify at least one word to search for. Each word must consist of at least 4 characters and must not contain more than 84 characters excluding wildcards.


Not a "Back" button either. Huh.



So, tackling the search subsystem... who's up for that?

Anyone?

*tap* *tap* "Is this thing on?"


Just install Apache, PHP, MySQL, then phpBB and you're good to go.


It'll likely be a low-ish priority I'm afraid.

But it's definitely not a bad idea. Even something that could be submitted upstream as a patch and get incorporated into thousands (or more) installations of phpBB if anyone wants some glory.
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Re: Search function

Postby jbobsully11 » Fri Apr 22, 2016 1:58 am

Speaking of issues with the search function... just now, when I searched for the phrase, "when you grow up" (without quotation marks) in General Discussion, it gave me a normal set of results (as it should have). When I then made sure the text box was clear and searched for "you grew" (from the results page, again without quotes), I got this:
Spoiler: show
search.jpg
Really?
search.jpg (108.29 KiB) Viewed 7367 times


Making absolutely sure the text box was clear and trying more searches only added to the string in the results.
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Crimson847 wrote:In other words, transgender-friendly privacy laws don't molest people, people molest people.

(Presumably, the only way to stop a bad guy with a transgender-friendly privacy law is a good guy with a transgender-friendly privacy law, and thus transgender-friendly privacy law rights need to be enshrined in the Constitution as well)
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Re: Search function

Postby CarrieVS » Fri Apr 22, 2016 9:50 am

jbobsully11 wrote:I then made sure the text box was clear and searched ... from the results page


The only search text box on the results page that I've ever seen is the 'search these results' one - the one shown in your screenshot with a cursor in it: is that that box you were using?

So adding your new search criteria to the existing ones would be the expected behaviour. You need to go back to the search page (either via the menu item or with the 'return to advanced search' link on the results page) to star a fresh search.
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Re: Search function

Postby jbobsully11 » Fri Apr 22, 2016 4:33 pm

Ah. Never mind then.

*backs away slowly*
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Crimson847 wrote:In other words, transgender-friendly privacy laws don't molest people, people molest people.

(Presumably, the only way to stop a bad guy with a transgender-friendly privacy law is a good guy with a transgender-friendly privacy law, and thus transgender-friendly privacy law rights need to be enshrined in the Constitution as well)
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Re: Search function

Postby CarrieVS » Fri Apr 22, 2016 6:01 pm

Hey, I once started a thread requesting a button that already existed.
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