Originally Posted by Road Rash,May 24 2005, 09:09 AM

Search function sucks here.

Originally Posted by SIIK2NR,May 24 2005, 09:23 AM

Note: if you want to discuss search please use this thread. This one is more of a manual.

Searching with the forums search feature is a very powerful tool for finding the information you are looking for. However, it is not obvious how to obtain good results from the search engine. There is a help topic I've updated which hopefully explains the best way to find what you are looking for. It's a big pain to figure out for an occasional user but an essential skill to learn for the regulars. Here is the link https://www.s2ki.com/forums/index.ph...CODE=01&HID=10 and I've also pasted it here for convenience.

There are some additional advanced search techniques I've omitted from the instructions which you can find here http://dev.mysql.com/doc/mysql/en/fulltext-boolean.html If you are a serious searcher it may be worth your time to have a look at the advanced options as they can really improve the quality of the results and result is significant time saved wading through posts of no relevance.

If you get errors which searching (MySQL errors) it's possible you search isn't specific enough and returning too many results. Try to change the search options but obviously if you continue to have problems let us know at support@s2ki.com.

s2ki Search How-to

The search feature is designed to allow you to quickly find topics and posts that contain the keywords you enter. There are two types of search form available, simple search and advanced search.

Simple Search

All you need to do here is enter in a keyword into the search box at the top of each page. Simple search takes all of the default options and allows you to quickly look for keywords.

Advanced Search

The advanced search page will give you a much greater range of options to choose from to refine your search. In addition to searching by keyword, you are able to search by a members username or a combination of both. You can also choose to refine your search by selecting a date range, and there are a number of sorting options available. There are also two ways of displaying the search results, can either show the post text in full or just show a link to the topic, can choose this using the radio buttons available. to use advanced search click the "Search" button at the top of any page.

Keywords

When searching, either Simple or Advanced, you can control what is searched for by adding "modifiers" to the keywords you enter. A modifier is a symbol placed at the beginning of the keyword which controls how search handles each word. For example +keyword or -keyword or ~keyword all change the way the keyword is handled and affect the quality of search results.

No Modifier. When you use no modifier you imply that the keyword is optional and may or may not appear in your search results. Results containing the keyword are given a higher confidence value and sorted to the top. For example a search for "door knob" will find all posts with "door" or with "knob" or with both or even without either door or knob. Posts with the most matching keywords are sorted to the top.

The + Modifier. Use + to tell search to require the keyword in the result. For example searching for "+door +knob" will return all posts containing both door and knob. Searching for "door +knob" will find all posts that contain "knob" and optionally "door", sorting those that contain "door" to the top of the results.

The - Modifier Use - to exclude a keyword from the results. For example, searching for "+door -knob" will find all posts containing the keyword "door" but not the word "knob".

The ~ (tilde) Modifier Use ~ (tilde) to negate a keyword. That is, rather than exclude posts matching this keyword, deprioritize posts that do to below those that don't in the results. This is the exact opposite as No Modifier. For example "+door ~knob" will find all posts containing "door" and rank those which do not contain "knob" above those the do in the results.

Phrases

To find an exact phrase or sequence of keywords enclose them in double-quotes ". You can apply modifiers to quoted phrases. A phrase is nothing more than an extended keyword and can and should be used that way. Searching for +"door knob" will match all posts containing that exact phrase including the space. +"door knob" will not match the text 'knob door' as +door +knob will.

Examples

Here are some examples of using keywords and phrases to find what you are looking for:

door knob Find all posts preferring those containing the keywords over those which don't.

+door knob Find all posts containing "door" and possibly containing "knob" favoring those which do.

+door -knob Find all posts containing "door" and not containing "knob".

+door ~knob Find all posts containing "door" and possibly containing "knob", favoring those which don't over those which do.

+"door knob" Find all posts containing the phrase "door knob".