More advanced Search Options

Started by Burke ♞ Knight, September 04, 2013, 06:16:36 PM

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Burke ♞ Knight

I think it would be great to expand the options in the search function.
Add ways, like:
search for polls by a user
search for posts by member group

Those are the 2 I'd like to see. Maybe others have more ideas. :)

Arantor

Eh, the main problem with those is pure performance. Polls are not indexed to be searched so they will be dog slow by comparison.

As for searching by group, that's just going to suck in performance whatever you do.

Burke ♞ Knight

Here on the SMF site, I wonder if they could add the wiki to the search options.
That way, they can search for topics and the wiki for what issue they have.

Arantor

You mean where it is currently below Themes and above Mantis?

Burke ♞ Knight

I mean when on the forum here, when hit search on menu.
Shows list of boards, but not the Wiki. (In list when I look at search, Mantis is not there, either.)

Arantor

As opposed to the menu that people actually tend to use? See attached.

I've long thought the search button should disappear off the menu... another suggestion that should have made it to the feature requests board with proof of concept...

Burke ♞ Knight

Okay, I see where you are.
However, I was meaning on the advanced search page.

Would be nice to see that drop down there, as well.

Arantor

The main problem is that SMF's search backend just isn't that smart.

Mind you, I'd still wonder why people are obsessed with smaller tweaks instead of bigger ones. (Hint: wedge.org has quite a nice revamp of the search page. ;))

Burke ♞ Knight

Trust me, my friend, I know.
But like you said before, have to start somewhere, and me requesting a complete revamp most likely wont go yet... ;)

Arantor

I'm not sure how many people realise just how limited the *backend* part of SMF's searching is ;) It's deeper than many would even dream of. It's basically built around how Sphinx operated 4 years ago and cannot be made to support, say, ElasticSearch without a *total* rewrite. Nor can it support anything other than posts.

And even though it's theoretically 'segregated backends', there are multiple places in the code where that just doesn't happen, including an entire search log table that's built most of the time even when it's not used.

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