While searching today I was running into a little problem.


I searched for "DCI" and I wanted only the electronics forum sorted by date and 100 results per page. What was happening was when I clicked the forum I wanted, it prompted me for my search again, so I typed DCI, and it got me all the results from the electronics forum. Then I wanted to sort by date and it asked me for the search word again? I typed in DCI again and then it sorted by date but not by forum?


I did somehow get it to display that, but as soon as i clicked next page, it asked for my search word again?

Search does look great though!!

 

It should not ask you again for anything, your options should be accumulating in the URL. As I was replaying your instructions I did get times when it did what you describe. I'm not sure why and it didn't happen consistently. It's something I'll need to look into more.

The URL for your search should go something like this following your description:

https://www.s2ki.com/search/forums (Gets you to search with just a search box)
https://www.s2ki.com/search/forums?query=dci (Gets you all posts containing DCI ordered by relevance)
https://www.s2ki.com/search/forums?query=dc...forum=26&topic= (Gets you just the electronics forum posts)
https://www.s2ki.com/search/forums?query=dc...forum=26&topic= (Sorted by date descending)
https://www.s2ki.com/search/forums?query=dc...forum=26&topic= (100 per page)
https://www.s2ki.com/search/forums?forum=26..._mode=relevance (2nd page)

 

Hmmm, I might have figured out what was up.

Are you compatible with Firefox? I just tried IE and it seemed fine. The method you described (it just adding to your criteria) made sense and thats how I thought it would work...and it seems to be much better with IE.

 

Yes, it's dead simple HTML stuff compatible with all browsers. I know what the problem is, I just don't know why it's happening until I investigate further. What is happening is that the server gets the right URL but then is redirecting the browser the same URL with all the parameters removed. The problem lies on the server side for sure and not with your browser.

I'll take a closer look in the morning.

 

Erik,

While it seems many people like the new search as it brings back better results (I've yet to get them on my search) I'll say I'm not a fan of the new interface.

The other search had much of the extra qualifiers right on the first page. That helped narrow it down a little without getting every result back if you knew the user or date range or forum. Now, I either need to put specific syntax in the search string (as you've pointed out here: https://www.s2ki.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=600732 - consider adding this text right on the search page btw) or bring back all the search results, then narrow them down.

On that topic, the left quick menus only list whats on that page, so if the result isn't on the first page, the quick menus may not help that much. Again, if I knew the user, I'd put them in the initial search.

Lastly, searching with numbers is horrible. I realize that a number in a quoted dated is just like text, but it also searches the ascii codes for special characters. I was going to do some more research on this before work, but search is dog slow today. My results never even came back.

You mentioned in the bulk upload thread about investigating using other readily available tools to manage the gallery as an option to free up your time and resources I'd think search is an even clearer winner there - use a readily available search tool rather than build and maintain one here.

 

Gary,

There are no other readily available search tools which sort or select by anything other than text (google). So while you may complain that searching by forum or date or user is not to your liking you really aren't going to like searching by nothing but text from a rendered page updated pretty much whenever google feels like it. The other similar option is Google site search but that's a paid service and the cost of indexing all all 2 or 3 million pages is cost prohibitive.

Your dislike for the new search interface is noted however you should be aware that the quality of the results is no better than it was before. It's the same search engine with the same search indexes that we've had for over a year. The only thing I changed was the code which accesses those indexes.

What I suggest is that perhaps the results appear to be better because of how they are presented. Before you would enter all of your search criteria, try to search and find nothing and blame the search engine. Now you enter a broad search and narrow it by elimination, thus you almost always start with a set of results from which to narrow down.

Each page shows: a page of posts, a page or authors and a page of topics. If the user isn't on the first page of results then going to the next will show you the next page. If you want to narrow the choices for the user you can simple put user:... in the query.

Your user search is searchable as well so user:heyitsgary and user:hey and user:gary will all find posts you've made. You can even get more complicated:

userhey and its and gary)

will find heyitsgary AND heyitsfoogary

In a very short time I'm sure you will come to appreciate just how much simpler and more power the new search interface is and will have no desire to return to the old way.

 

What operatives can be used? Quotations to search for phrase? +/-?

 

To search for a phrase use double quotes "". "this that" treats this that as a single word rather than two.

You can use AND OR and NOT as operators between words like this AND that (find posts containing BOTH words), this OR that (find posts containing EITHER word), this NOT that (find posts containing this but NOT that) and NOT this NOT that (find posts containing NEITHER word).

You can group operations with parens (). this and (that or other) finds all posts matching that and that and this and other and this and that and other.

OR is inclusive not exclusive meaning one or both rather than one but not the other. To make and exclusive or (XOR) you'll need to create it long hand: (this not that) and (that not this).

user:, forum: and topic: all take a single word or phrase. user:"foo bar", user:foobar, userfoo and bar). You can only use these operators once so usercthree or nate) but not user:cthree or user:nate.

 

OK - Understood. From your comment about not indexing many off-topic threads, I'll agree with your assessment and expertise about those costs.

As I said - Others seem to like the new search. My search still comes up with crappy results. And because there are no text boxes to fill in for my userid, I can't readily select myself. If my result was on the first page, it would be a moot point.

Yes- modifying the search box above (just like entering data in the left menu) worked fine.

My suggestion is to take the comments from your sticky thread and list all of the options available to people on the main search page. It's basically an empty page with a text box now. List the options right on the page. In the three? search related threads you've explained that in each one, plus put a sticky up. Why not put that info where people will see it and use it - on the search page itself. You know people won't read the sticky thread that says 'Use the Search!" (As I type this, you've apparently already answered another question with more details about operators and parameters.

Yes - whatever was causing the extreme slowness earlier today appears gone, and the interface, plus tips provided make it more usable to navigate. Thanks!

 

The old search had only a text box to fill in for the username so you would need to type it anyway. There was no selection box. Once you adjust to the new search you'll find it just as easy or even easier to type user:heyitsgary in the query field rather than typing heyitsgary in the username field.

You may want to bookmark https://www.s2ki.com/search/forums?q...:heyitsgary%20. That will prefill the query with your username.

This is a good suggestion and one I'll implement in the next update.

Occasionally, about once a week, the daily server log rotation process buggers up the web server causing the threads to get stuck. This happens at 4AM Pacific time so at about 7AM eastern time the site will appear to bog down gradually getting worse until it dies completetly. When I get out of bed the first thing I do is load the site to see if it's working ok. If not I kick it. I'm trying to use a monitoring system to detect the failure and kick it for me but system administration/IT stuff isn't my long suit.