Is advanced search working?
Administrator
Joined: Oct 2000
Posts: 20,274
Likes: 4
From: Toronto, Canada
I assume you typed your name in the search box? Try clicking "adv" then putting in your username in the "written by" field (or words to that effect). It won't otherwise work unless your username is part of the body of the post. My test with your name doing it as I suggest returns 48 documents.
Administrator
Joined: Oct 2000
Posts: 20,274
Likes: 4
From: Toronto, Canada
Also you should note that when you do this it changes your username to a "userxxxx" string. The reason is simple. Your username may change but your user ID doesn't. We convert your username to a "userxxxx" string before the post is indexed so that the user ID is stored as part of the post.
It's a bit complicated but due to the size of our post database, using an SQL database search of what amounts to tens of millions of word indexes plus joins to the user and thread tables will literally crush the servers. 2 people searching would basically stop the site.
Instead we chose to use a text indexing engine similar to google and other Internet search engines. We output a page for every post, encode some of the information like when it was written, which forum it's in, which thread it's in and who wrote it. We then index that page just like it was a real web page.
Krazik worked the magic to make it function but people familiar with simple forums searches can get a bit lost. Think of your post as it's own web page and think of all other posts the same way. Then do a search on those pages. Things aren't stored in the search engine the same way you see them in the forums.
Another advantage our search tools have over a simple forum database search is that we can index the entire site with one search engine. Not a big deal now but as we add to the library a search for "spoon exhaust" will turn up far more than just forum posts.
The ideal for us would be to get one of these: http://www.google.com/appliance/product_info.html but short of winning the lottery we'll have to make do with less expensive technology.
It's a bit complicated but due to the size of our post database, using an SQL database search of what amounts to tens of millions of word indexes plus joins to the user and thread tables will literally crush the servers. 2 people searching would basically stop the site.
Instead we chose to use a text indexing engine similar to google and other Internet search engines. We output a page for every post, encode some of the information like when it was written, which forum it's in, which thread it's in and who wrote it. We then index that page just like it was a real web page.
Krazik worked the magic to make it function but people familiar with simple forums searches can get a bit lost. Think of your post as it's own web page and think of all other posts the same way. Then do a search on those pages. Things aren't stored in the search engine the same way you see them in the forums.
Another advantage our search tools have over a simple forum database search is that we can index the entire site with one search engine. Not a big deal now but as we add to the library a search for "spoon exhaust" will turn up far more than just forum posts.
The ideal for us would be to get one of these: http://www.google.com/appliance/product_info.html but short of winning the lottery we'll have to make do with less expensive technology.
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