Simple Machines Community Forum

SMF Support => SMF 2.1.x Support => Topic started by: SethStudent on October 21, 2021, 12:55:36 PM

Title: Search for exact word or phrase?
Post by: SethStudent on October 21, 2021, 12:55:36 PM
Is there trick to a search for an exact word or phrase to narrow down results? It seems I used to be able to do this on my forum, before the upgrade to 2.1 RC4, but my memory could be faulty.

For instance, I did a search on the word progress, and got 6 pages of progress, progressed, progressive and progression. Searching on "progress" (in quotes) returned the same results.

Another example: I searched for Dr. Instream and results also contained mainstream and a multitude of different Drs.
Title: Re: Search for exact word or phrase?
Post by: Sir Osis of Liver on October 21, 2021, 06:15:57 PM
AFAIK search has always worked that way, don't know why it's never been fixed.
Title: Re: Search for exact word or phrase?
Post by: SethStudent on October 22, 2021, 09:55:59 AM
Quote from: Sir Osis of Liver on October 21, 2021, 06:15:57 PMAFAIK search has always worked that way, don't know why it's never been fixed.

Is there a way I could put in a request? Or start a petition? My forum is super text-heavy, we're probably not the only ones who would benefit from this ability.
Title: Re: Search for exact word or phrase?
Post by: Sir Osis of Liver on October 22, 2021, 12:47:50 PM
You can post a request in Feature Requests (https://www.simplemachines.org/community/index.php?board=3.0), but I think if it could have been done previously it would have been.
Title: Re: Search for exact word or phrase?
Post by: shawnb61 on October 22, 2021, 12:58:51 PM
For my 2.0 forum, we use the Search Focus Dropdown mod. That mod adds Google search, which will accomplish the type of search you're looking for.

https://custom.simplemachines.org/index.php?mod=1634

This would be a good addition for 2.1...
Title: Re: Search for exact word or phrase?
Post by: SethStudent on October 22, 2021, 05:15:27 PM
Quote from: Sir Osis of Liver on October 22, 2021, 12:47:50 PMYou can post a request in Feature Requests, but I think if it could have been done previously it would have been.

OK thanks, no harm in asking.  :D  Here's a search engine that has been developed and refined over the past five years by a young coder. It has a variety of search options, it would be a good model, but I don't know a thing about coding and what's involved with something like that.

https://findingseth.com/
Title: Re: Search for exact word or phrase?
Post by: albertlast on October 23, 2021, 03:19:39 PM
How strong the fulltext search in vanila 2.1 ist, depends on which database you run the forum,
the strongest you get with postgres driven forum.
Since the search is language aware.
Title: Re: Search for exact word or phrase?
Post by: Oldiesmann on October 25, 2021, 10:12:37 PM
There is a setting in the admin center for "match whole words only", but it doesn't seem to do anything (it's checked on my test board and searching for "test" returns results for both "test" and "testing")
Title: Re: Search for exact word or phrase?
Post by: SethStudent on October 25, 2021, 10:25:21 PM
Well, I seem to have a knack for finding bugs for some reason, being non-technical and therefore an innocent. Or ignorant, not sure which applies.

I will pursue this as a Feature Request. I've just been overwhelmed with other things lately.
Title: Re: Search for exact word or phrase?
Post by: Sir Osis of Liver on October 25, 2021, 11:20:39 PM
It's not really a bug, it's a shortcoming in the software.  You should be able to search for a complete string by placing it in quotes, but it's never worked here.  For reasons unknown it appears to be impossible to fix.