The Search is dead, long live the Search!

Boards.ie: Paddy · 07-02-2012 6:48pm

ScienceNerd wrote: »

I quite like the new search Will this mean less slowing down/errors?

That's the goal. Once we've removed the full text index from the post table the database servers will be much happier. Of course removing that index without downtime is going to be a challenge in itself.

TouchingVirus · 07-02-2012 8:40pm

the_syco wrote: »
Ah, cool. Missed that function completely. I used the following string in Google:
site:boards.ie "Originally Posted by the_syco" paint 2011 "motors"

Run that through Google for a non-public forum and see what it comes back with

enfant terrible · 07-02-2012 8:44pm

How do i find threads that I have posted on, which have been replied to with the new search?

Boards.ie: Danny · 07-02-2012 8:58pm

enfant terrible wrote: »

How do i find threads that I have posted on, which have been replied to with the new search?

How could you find it with the old search? It is yet another thing the "My Threads" feature is for, or thread subscriptions

enfant terrible · 07-02-2012 10:00pm

Boards.ie: Danny wrote: »

How could you find it with the old search? It is yet another thing the "My Threads" feature is for, or thread subscriptions

Think it was in advanced search "find posts by username"

Then it listed the threads you've posted in, with the threads with new post listed at the top.

the_syco · 07-02-2012 10:10pm

Less of a bug, more of a request: will someone be doing a "Cloud" theme for the search function and search results?

Boards.ie: Danny · 08-02-2012 12:33am

enfant terrible wrote: »

Think it was in advanced search "find posts by username"

Then it listed the threads you've posted in, with the threads with new post listed at the top.

You shouldn't use search just to find out if a thread you made/posted on has new posts, that is what subscriptions/follows are for

the_syco wrote: »

Less of a bug, more of a request: will someone be doing a "Cloud" theme for the search function and search results?

There are no plans for UI theming/skins.

sentient_6 · 08-02-2012 1:06am

enfant terrible wrote: »

Think it was in advanced search "find posts by username"

Then it listed the threads you've posted in, with the threads with new post listed at the top.

This a million times. I used it daily until today. Still can't stand the new search. Is there no way to view results as threads instead of posts in the new search?

Boards.ie: Danny wrote: »

You shouldn't use search just to find out if a thread you made/posted on has new posts, that is what subscriptions/follows are for

Guess we've no choice but to do it that way so......

Just need to the figure out the countless threads i kept an eye on.

Edit 2: When viewing followed threads, one old feature annoyingly missing is being able to either jump to the last unread post, or latest post, or the last page. Making it kinda pointless imo.

Edit 3: Actually i see i can do that stuff from the user cp, a place a rarely frequented before today. This is proving a painfull process!

pickarooney · 08-02-2012 10:45am

If I subscribed to threads I'd have to spend an hour a day emptying my Inbox. I honestly don't know how anyone could handle that volume of crap in their mail. I just rely on my memory these days.

seamus · 08-02-2012 10:46am

sentient_6 wrote: »

This a million times. I used it daily until today. Still can't stand the new search. Is there no way to view results as threads instead of posts in the new search?

To be fair, it is "threaded" to a certain degree as the posts are grouped by thread.

However it might be an idea to add expand/collapse functionality to the listing so that you can see a list of threads or threads and the associated posts. Very easy to do, too.

Boards.ie: Neil · 08-02-2012 10:50am

pickarooney wrote: »

If I subscribed to threads I'd have to spend an hour a day emptying my Inbox. I honestly don't know how anyone could handle that volume of crap in their mail. I just rely on my memory these days.

Dav wrote: »

The "Follow Thread" functionallity was set up for exactly this reason and you have the option to get an instant/daily/weekly email as well as no email. So any emails you get from it are entirely of your own choosing and are therefore, not spam. This is the pop-up you get when you click on the "Follow Thread" button:

I'm only point thing out because 1) it's both unfair and wrong to label the site as a spammer when we clearly aren't and 2) the reason we had a lot of difficulty in getting news to people about their accounts post hack 2 years ago is that people who asked to be alerted via email about things were flagging it as spam when they didn't want to receive it anymore instead of changing their account settings to no longer receive it.

^^

Boards.ie: Danny · 08-02-2012 10:54am

sentient_6 wrote: »

This a million times. I used it daily until today. Still can't stand the new search. Is there no way to view results as threads instead of posts in the new search?

Guess we've no choice but to do it that way so......

Just need to the figure out the countless threads i kept an eye on.

Edit 2: When viewing followed threads, one old feature annoyingly missing is being able to either jump to the last unread post, or latest post, or the last page. Making it kinda pointless imo.

Edit 3: Actually i see i can do that stuff from the user cp, a place a rarely frequented before today. This is proving a painfull process!

It's quite simple really, search should be used for searching. Not for keeping track of what posts you've made, threads you found interesting, etc.

It is the duplication of functionality all across vBulletin (Social Groups are essentially the same as private forums, visitor messages are just PMs posted in public etc) that is yet another core reason why we're moving away from it. People don't know where to start doing anything and people end up using something powerful (i.e. search) to do what 5000+ lines of code were wrote specifically to do i.e. (thread subscriptions/following).

We'd rather standarise what you're all doing than leave search open for one user to plug in "cat + dog" into the search box and take out the site. What use are your search results when you can't read the posts in them because you knocked out the site?

sentient_6 · 08-02-2012 1:18pm

enfant terrible wrote: »

Think it was in advanced search "find posts by username"

Then it listed the threads you've posted in, with the threads with new post listed at the top.

I just discovered if you go to edit options in the cp you can select to automatically subscribe/follow any thread you post in or start. Which will essestially do the same thing but from now on.

Boards.ie: Danny · 08-02-2012 1:54pm

sentient_6 wrote: »

I just discovered if you go to edit options in the cp you can select to automatically subscribe/follow any thread you post in or start. Which will essestially do the same thing but from now on.

Which is exactly what I do. And periodically I'll remove old threads from the subscriptions

sentient_6 · 08-02-2012 2:14pm

Boards.ie: Danny wrote: »

Which is exactly what I do. And periodically I'll remove old threads from the subscriptions

Thats cool so. My concern was removing the old search was removing a convenient way to track threads iv posted in.

Boards.ie: Danny · 08-02-2012 2:51pm

Convenient, but inappropriate

convert · 08-02-2012 3:17pm

Noooooo!

/ignores all tech speak and valid reasons simply because I don't like change!

08-02-2012 3:54pm

pickarooney wrote: »

If I subscribed to threads I'd have to spend an hour a day emptying my Inbox. I honestly don't know how anyone could handle that volume of crap in their mail. I just rely on my memory these days.

There's four different options for thread email subscriptions, including "No email", and you could just use your User CP. Btw, with instant, you only only get one notification per boards visit, not per post. Or you could just set up rules in your email client to handle the incoming notifications, put them in there own folder.

Personally, I'm subscribed to ~1500 threads, all of which are "Instant" notification, and it's by far the best way to handle your own threads and posts

strobe · 08-02-2012 5:52pm

I like new search. I have embraced it from day one. Man of progress, that's me.

One issue - Is the ability to 'search this thread' now defunct entirely or what? I can't do it with new search - simple or advanced. Little help?

Seomra Mushie · 08-02-2012 6:45pm

Can't search for who quoted me anymore.

Boards.ie: Danny · 08-02-2012 7:07pm

Seomra Mushie wrote: »

Can't search for who quoted me anymore.

The search for "who quoted me" is just a plain search with the query being your username. so on the new search just type in "Seomra Mushie" and you'll get the same results you would have.

Boards.ie: Danny · 08-02-2012 7:10pm

strobe wrote: »

I like new search. I have embraced it from day one. Man of progress, that's me.

One issue - Is the ability to 'search this thread' now defunct entirely or what? I can't do it with new search - simple or advanced. Little help?

It's defunct, for now. On the "must add to new search" list though

Dude111 · 09-02-2012 12:26am

Sharrow wrote:

Balls, there is less functionality with the new search.

Yes this is BS!!!!

I cant find my threads as easily,etc.......... (I used to search for threads i posted in since my last visit.... This new one doesnt work IF YOU HAVE SCRIPTS DISABLED,etc)

THE SEARCH WAS WORKING ALL ALONG,WHY DISABLE IT????? (This server loads quite nicely even with it)

Not happy at all..... This was one of my FAVOURITE vbb sites!

Shield · 09-02-2012 10:31am

Shield wrote: »

EDIT: Was unaware that us Moderators would still have access to it for moderating purposes. This changes everything. I never used free text searching anyway.

People might not see this amendment to my original post, so it's up above for all to see. I also have a few more thoughts on the issue, but rather than edit them in where they might be overlooked, I've added them to this post.

The new search function needs a lot of work for it to return accurate and relevant results to me so far. I have tried it a good few times and it has returned nothing even close to what I was looking for. I know that old search had to be turned off, but because new search is close to unusable, there must be a way to turn off free searching in old search and restore it, rather than switch to new search which simply doesn't work!

For example, is it possible to just remove the box that people would type in to? Or is it possible to just return a standard error message if that field is populated with any text?

Just a few suggestions that might not be too difficult to implement in old search while new search is being brought up to a useable standard.

I would really welcome its return without the keyword field there because lots of us used it for moderation (without ever having to use the keyword field).

Just saying...

Boards.ie: Danny · 09-02-2012 10:50am

Shield wrote: »

People might not see this amendment to my original post, so it's up above for all to see. I also have a few more thoughts on the issue, but rather than edit them in where they might be overlooked, I've added them to this post.

The new search function needs a lot of work for it to return accurate and relevant results to me so far. I have tried it a good few times and it has returned nothing even close to what I was looking for. I know that old search had to be turned off, but because new search is close to unusable, there must be a way to turn off free searching in old search and restore it, rather than switch to new search which simply doesn't work!

For example, is it possible to just remove the box that people would type in to? Or is it possible to just return a standard error message if that field is populated with any text?

Just a few suggestions that might not be too difficult to implement in old search while new search is being brought up to a useable standard.

I would really welcome its return without the keyword field there because lots of us used it for moderation (without ever having to use the keyword field).

Just saying...

The total number of uses of everybody complaining about old search being gone is less than 200 queries over the last 2+ months. Nobody seems to have had any great attachment to it, the highest repeat offender for search had just 57 searches. Compare that to almost 750,000 searches on new search.

As a mod you have access to pretty much everything you had before, except direct access to the search page. In the interest of actually moving discussion on:

No, barring very exceptional circumstances, access to old search won't be coming back.

Yes, we are aware there are slight functional differences between the search systems and we'll aim to port over any lost functionality as soon as we can. The only two things I can identify that are missing is the ability to search for threads with posts > X and a tag search. What exactly do you need the old search page for? I'm nearly sure all other bases are covered with New Search's advanced mode.

09-02-2012 10:52am

Boards.ie: Danny wrote: »

The only two things I can identify that are missing is the ability to search for threads with posts > X and a tag search.

And the ability to search in a specific thread. I still prefer the new search, but that is a bit of a gap

Boards.ie: Danny · 09-02-2012 11:00am

28064212 wrote: »

And the ability to search in a specific thread. I still prefer the new search, but that is a bit of a gap

On-thread searching was covered before by strobe, I've already said it's coming. Again, stats show it wasn't used that often, and yet could still hose the site. Uptime > "On-thread searching". Also, on-thread searching was not available from the search page, only from threads.

09-02-2012 11:07am

Re: following a thread - one of the things I love most about the beta skin is that when you set it to, "no notification" or whatever it is, you still get that little flashing icon to show when someone has posted in that thread. I always follow the threads I created myself.

I'm not even sure when I last used the search function properly - with my subbed list and followed threads, it makes it pretty easy to keep up to date.

Wibbs · 09-02-2012 11:34am

Shield wrote: »

The new search function needs a lot of work for it to return accurate and relevant results to me so far. I have tried it a good few times and it has returned nothing even close to what I was looking for.

Yea ditto

Then again I'm likely to be using it wrong.

Boards.ie: Danny wrote:

On-thread searching was covered before by strobe, I've already said it's coming.

Good to hear D. I used it a fair amount in the past TBH. Again that's just me and usually for moddy stuff and since old search is still there for that purpose that's cool.

Dude111 · 09-02-2012 6:04pm

Boards.ie: Danny wrote:

No, barring very exceptional circumstances, access to old search won't be coming back.

Well then most of us wont be coming back either as WE CANT FIND OUR THREADS!!!!!!!!!!

A very mean/rude/unprofessional thing to do TO JUST CUT PEOPLE OFF!!!!! (I thought only ppl in the USA were like this)

ALL THE TIMES I HAVE EVER COME HERE THIS SERVER WAS RESPONDING FINE WITH THE REGULAR SEARCH ACTIVE,@ NO TIME DID I HAVE SLOW DOWN!!!!

I always loved this site BECAUSE YOU GUYS DIDNT PUT VB4 ON HERE but now its pretty much worthless

-- You mine as well put VB4 on here now,your starting the downward trend towards that now anyway!

Quite sad

The total number of uses of everybody complaining about old search being gone is less than 200 queries over the last 2+ months.

Thats because YOU JUST DISABLED IT WHEN,YESTERDAY???

The Search is dead, long live the Search!

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