Shawn,

Using quotation marks in Search doesn't seem to work. For example, I recently tried to pull up a thread that I started called "Read Any Good Books Lately?" to re-read the interesting responses. When I entered the title exactly as I've done above (with quotation marks), the search engine returns nothing. If I enter it without quotation marks, the search engine gets overwhelmed with the word "any."

Am I doing something wrong? Is there a way to hone in on an exact phrase?

Also, can I use boolean operators like "and, or, +, -, etc."?

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Guy

I can't give you as full an answer as Shawn can, but it does not appear that quotation marks give an exact phrase match. The text inside the quotes is searched with Boolean AND. Example: If you search for a thread containing "Triumph customer magazine," you'll find at least one thread with that title, and several more that contain (somewhere within them) "Triumph" AND "customer" AND "magazine," whether the exact phrase ever appears in them or not.

Even if there IS a way to search for an exact phrase, it may not always do any good, since it's necessary to enter the phrase exactly. If you spelled something a little differently in the thread from what you did in your search string, that would preclude a match.

However, here's a completely different workaround for your particular question: In your post above, right-click on your username and open in a new window. In the block labelled Forum Info, you should find a link reading "Find all threads started by mistermellow001." In that list, I see that the thread still exists, and the most recent post in it was by markbvt on September 5.

Good luck.

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John

Thanks, John. I found it the way you suggested. Here's something interesting, though. On the FAQ page, there is a completely different set of search tools. You can select:

• Match any words
• Match all words
• Match complete phrase

And can:

• Search in titles only
• Search in titles and text

It is this functionality that I was looking for in the forum search area but couldn't find.

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Guy

Cool !

I hadn't spent all that much time on the FAQ page yet myself, but I guess it's a case of "ask and ye shall find," one way or the other.

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John

Shawn,

Have you had time to look into whether the different sets of search tools that are employed on this site can be used in the general forum searches? (see my last post)

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Guy

A few months ago, I converted the back-end search engine on TriumphRat.Net to what I would classify as an "internalized" option in order to simplify some search problems users were having. The problem rose initially with short-word searches, and keeping indexes up to dated.

Now that TriumphRat.Net has been moved, and has undergone most of the necessary database server tuning, I can start the effort to convert the search index back to the database server's control. Before, it didn't make sense to invest time on it because the server move also included an upgrade to a new database server version.

Under the current "simplified" forum search implementation, few search operators have much effect. For example, inputting two words will yield results that can be improved with using operators like plus-signs and double-quotes.

When the conversion is done, my hope is that things like phrase-matching will be possible again (wrapping a specific phrase in double-quotes).

I can do most of the preliminary work beforehand with little site interruption. However, when the time comes to rebuild the database index I'll have to close the site for a while - up to two hours.

More to come,

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Thanks, Shawn. A lot of work and much appreciated. And I even understood what you said!

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Guy

The Search Engine has been returned to the control of the database server (instead of the forum).

I've made some minor changes, compared to when it was active before. I've done some phrase-based searches, not all of them worked perfectly but the results have improved.

If things are still going well after a couple days, I'll post a guide on how to use the operators.

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