New forum search (beta)

[Phil Herring]

A new forum/archive search is now online: look under the Search tab for New Forum Search (beta).

The interface is mostly the same, but I added the concept of filtering. You can filter your results by boat model, brand, and/or forum.

One thing you'll certainly like: it is blazing fast.

Be warned: you may find a bug or two, but please email or post any bugs you find or suggestions you have.

Thanks!

 

[Mich222]

Phil:
You deserve recognition for the good work you do to keep the site operative and constantly improving. Thank you.

 

[Don12364]

New Search Engine

Hi Phil,
Delighted you have improved the search engine. I have spent much time trying to locate my previous responses to save having to completely re-type a contribution when a particular question crops up again (and again!).
One thing I did see a need for is to be able to search within a search. Some describe this as 'refine'.
To be able to first search on a key word to get into the subject matter and then to refine this by either adding other word(s) or even use a different category such as 'author' would be utopia.

Can it be done?

 

[Phil Herring]

Re: New Search Engine

The search engine we're using doesn't have a refined search as a native feature, but it can probably be done... assuming I can figure it out.

I did add a filtering option by author, so you can now, for example, search for all posts about "stuffing box" that were written by Maine Sail. Or even more fun, search all posts about forum guidelines that were written by me.

 

[Ed Schenck]

Phil, get zero results in "Search".

When I use the beta Search I get zero results, not even a "not found". I used "jessica watson" and "exact phrase" the first time. I did not notice that "Hunter" was a default. Second time I used "none" instead of "Hunter" with same result, nothing.

 

[Phil Herring]

I swear, I think gremlins get in there and change my code overnight. it was working when I left it last night but sure as heck, it was broken this morning.

It is now working again. The jessica watson keywords bring up about a half dozen hits and if you filter it with your name, just this post.

 

[Phil Herring]

The new search is now installed on the Search tab.

Features:
- Much faster

- Will search for numbers or any key word, no matter how short (old search ignored words 3 characters or less)

- Introduced the concept of filtering: Searching for the keyword "sail", you can limit the results to boat brands (Hunter, Catalina, Beneteau, etc.), or any model (.i.e, all models with 26 in the designation), or a forum (Head Mistress, perhaps), or an author. This will really pare down results on common searches. Or, for a broad batch of results include no filters and get results from all sites, forums, and authors.

- Index updates hourly; old search updated daily.

- More accurate search results

- Keywords highlighted in red when you click through to a thread

- Better default settings because the new search uses a lot less server overhead

Again, please let me know of bugs or pass along suggestions. I'll do what I can to implement them.