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Request for Feedback - Advanced Search

IcyLiquidIcyLiquid Two SteaksMontreal, QuebecAdministrator, Vanilla Staff vanilla
Hi all

We're working on our implementation of Advanced Search for Vanilla and I'd like to solicit feedback on our working draft. I've included a screenshot of what we've got so far.

Specifically, we want to know if this satisfies all the use-cases you have found in your posting experience, and if not, what those unfulfilled use-cases might be. To be clear, this is a Hosted Vanilla feature (not a Penny-Arcade specific one) so I am bringing it here for some insightful suggestions / commentary, not to build something custom just for you. I feel like that needs to be understood.

Finally, I'm going to pick and choose from the suggestions / comments I receive. Not everything that gets said here will be useful, maybe none of it will be useful. Who knows. That's just how it is! Either way, thanks in advance for your input.

https://us.v-cdn.net/5018289/uploads/FileUpload/c5/aa8ca670f5b14d093f315653163e4c.png

Posts

  • 21stCentury21stCentury Call me Pixel, or Pix for short! [They/Them]Registered User regular
    That looks cool. I've wanted to search threads by title for a long time. it's such a pain to go through tens of forums pages manually searching for a keyword...

  • ShivahnShivahn Unaware of her barrel shifter privilege Western coastal temptressRegistered User, Moderator mod
    edited May 2013
    One thing that occurs to me is that sometimes I'm looking for when someone was mentioned, but if you search based on their username almost all the results will be people quoting them, as the [­quote=whoever] tag gets picked up. Is there any way to avoid that? I know that there probably isn't because it's actually in the post body, but it certainly is one of those times when I groan at the search function.

    Edit for something that just occurred to me: that can probably be simulated by searching with -[quote="whoever", so maybe it's not as difficult as I thought.

    Shivahn on
  • IcyLiquidIcyLiquid Two Steaks Montreal, QuebecAdministrator, Vanilla Staff vanilla
    Why don't you just search with an '@' in front?

  • spool32spool32 Contrary Library Registered User regular
    Shivahn wrote: »
    One thing that occurs to me is that sometimes I'm looking for when someone was mentioned, but if you search based on their username almost all the results will be people quoting them, as the [­quote=whoever] tag gets picked up. Is there any way to avoid that? I know that there probably isn't because it's actually in the post body, but it certainly is one of those times when I groan at the search function.

    Edit for something that just occurred to me: that can probably be simulated by searching with -[quote="whoever", so maybe it's not as difficult as I thought.

    This is a major issue with the current search feature, and if the "search by author" option works to actually find post authors (as opposed to finding their names in a post), then it'll solve the problem.

    This looks to be pretty solid IMO. Searching in the forums is a nightmare right now and this seems like it'll solve most or perhaps all the issues.

    In you rexample image, an you describe why the 2nd result appeared? I don't get why it matched the search criteria.

  • ShivahnShivahn Unaware of her barrel shifter privilege Western coastal temptressRegistered User, Moderator mod
    IcyLiquid wrote: »
    Why don't you just search with an '@' in front?

    I forgot to mention that that doesn't work.

    Probably should have pointed that out >.>

    At least for me, it never returns results. Though I also sometimes want to grab when someone's name comes up but not in the context of being summoned.

  • BobCescaBobCesca Is a girl Birmingham, UKRegistered User regular
    This looks like it should make searching for stuff easier. I do a fair amount of searching because stuff happens while I'm asleep (stupid UK time zones) and being able to search by time will make things a lot easier.

    A question in terms of modifiers: is it just "+" and "-" or is there a plan to add more complicated AND and OR (and various combinations thereof). They might work and the same and I'm just being stupid, it's just the latter is what I'm used to with other search stuff I do.

  • zerzhulzerzhul Registered User, Moderator mod
    edited May 2013
    I may have missed it, but searching within a specific thread would be grand. Is that what the "title" box is for?

    zerzhul on
  • skippydumptruckskippydumptruck begin again Registered User regular
    looks good to me!

  • spool32spool32 Contrary Library Registered User regular
    edited May 2013
    . whoops wrong thread.

    spool32 on
  • ArbitraryDescriptorArbitraryDescriptor changed Registered User regular
    Option to search within quote and/or spoiler tags or not?

    Could be helpful if disabled in a few scenarios. Ex:Trying to find the original post, not quotes of it, or searching in a spoilery thread without getting spoilers as a result.

  • SmasherSmasher Starting to get dizzy Registered User regular
    What's the difference between searching for "foo, bar" and "foo +bar"?

  • SpoitSpoit *twitch twitch* Registered User regular
    zerzhul wrote: »
    I may have missed it, but searching within a specific thread would be grand. Is that what the "title" box is for?

    Is the title field also for only a specific thread, or could put a partial expression there, for example to search all threads with "mass effect" in the title for mentions of 'geth'.

    Also, if you put the thread number (e.g. 178769 for this thread) in the field, will it recognize that? For threads that have people that change the title often.

    And would the intended case to search of an arbitrary time period (that's not from 'today' back) be to try to find the mid point and do half the length on either side?

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