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:hysterical: That was good Metrogirl...

 

But honestly, Ever since I was new here, I've thought that even the advanced search options on this forum aren't the greatest. I know that google indexes the site, so why can't we have a google search? Perhaps on the main forum page. Most of the time when I need to do a multi-word boolean search on the forum, I go to Google with the "site:forum.osx86project.org" option anyway. Trying those searches with the built in search tool invariably gives me the error page anyway... What can we do about this Moderators? sHARD? Deetman? I think it would greatly enhance the usability of the site, especially for the n00bs among us. :P

I know, it was rather unkind, but I couldn't resist it. I do hope dilnalomo forgives me angel_not.gif

 

The search function is a pre-built feature of IPB and it was quite good in the early days when we didn't have 24,000+ members and such an enormous number of posts. Now it's snowed under with data. I'm not at all sure what can be done to improve it, though like Google, what you get out depends a lot on your skill at defining a search. It's one of the things we need to look at and, since I flagged this post to the mods, it should get some attention. Thanks for the input!

Attention for the incredibly obvious response, or the fact that the search may need some "repositioning"? :P

 

I don't blame you Metrogirl...you warned us you were just a little drunk tonight. (can't find your drunk smiley again...). :hysterical:

Here are some:beer.gifdrunk.gif

I can see how he couldn't find the search functions, there needs to be borders around things, it's very difficult to see the drop downs if you aren't looking for them, especially when the forum link is the only one with a drop down. Also there are no borders on the text boxes, like the one I'm typing in now. I have to use tab to find my way through the forms on this site. Maybe it looks alright in Safari or IE, but this is how it looks in Firefox and I think the style sheet should be changed. Same with buttons, when the buttons are just plain text, they don't stand out and takes too long to find.

 

I know there's a different theme, and I'll be switching to that one, but most people don't know that and with this as the default people shouldn't have to change it.

I don't disagree. The search option isn't blindingly apparent in the skin with the drop-down, though I don't think it's hard to find. We'll look at ways to make it more intuitive and of obtaining improved results.

I think it has less to do with visibility and more to do with lazyness - most people just can't be bothered looking and want answers handed to them on a plate.

 

i dont know about you, but every forum i've been to has a "search" button on top of the page. it's not that i am lazy, it's because i got used to it that way. i dont purposely look for the search function, it's always been sitting there...

i find the forums here somewhat unorganized...you have people who are trying to install OSx 86 on a pc posting in several forums, and guides are spreading across forums too, i think there should be one forum for guides(installing + hardware), one forum questions.

Full Text Searching has been disabled on this forum. I enabled it yesturday for a min and in searches what I got 0 results, It was comming up with 29Pages of results. So we either have it off and have more accurate results or have it on and have 40pages worth.

  • 2 weeks later...

I have not had any issue finding where to do my searches, but many, many issues with the quality of those searches. Using the forum's built in search, I regularly get no results returned.

 

So, for instance, if I use the "Search Form" to find "945GNT audio", I get nothing.

 

Most of the time I open another browser tab, go to google, and do a "site:forum.osx86project.org 945GNT audio", where I would get results returned.

 

Would it be difficult to modify the forms to add goole search of the site in many places?

 

It would be great to not have to go through those extra steps to get results returned. I don't really mind the extra steps, but I doubt there are that many people going through the extra effort. It could cut down a lot of duplicate posting if there was better searching.

 

What I don't know how to do with google is restrict searching to particular forums, or have the advanced features of sorting by date.

 

Would it be possible to have the a "quick" search option or an "detailed" search option on items that are hard to find?

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