PINE64
Searching the Forums - Printable Version

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+--- Forum: Getting Started (https://forum.pine64.org/forumdisplay.php?fid=21)
+--- Thread: Searching the Forums (/showthread.php?tid=5942)

Searching the Forums - Luke - 04-06-2018

I recently noticed a significant increase of overlapping posts/ threads on the forum. Realistically speaking this probably cannot be avoided as new members join to have one or two questions answered so they can set up their hardware. But I do think that it would be beneficial to have this under control.

To this end, I feel that a  part of the problem is that people do not us/  do not know how to use the search functions available to them. Typing in a search query in the box on the top right of the forum is rarely useful because of how myBB interprets a search.

For instance, a search for
Quote:Rock64 GPIO
is understood as Rock64 OR GPIO as opposed to the AND behavior most people expect.

To get the search results you'd expect you need to write AND linking the two or more search words, such as in this example:
Quote:Rock64 AND GPIO

But even so the results of the search are hit n' miss. I find that a better alternative for a quick search is using google's search engine. In google type site:forum.pine64.org followed by the search words, e.g.:


[Image: SUfiuyB.png]


But lets get back to what is available in myBB. If you look above the top black bar with the search box, you'll see a looking glass icon labeled 'Search' which looks like this:

   

Clicking it reveals a number of useful options including: restricting searches to a sub-forum (device), max/min number of responses, author, username(s), date-range of the thread/post, prefixes, etc,.

[Image: MFQMrl5.png]


By narrowing your search to the sub-forum (device) and including a few other bits of information that one may remember or expect, its actually quite possible to narrow down the search to just a few threads/ posts that are relevant. In the case of my example, I included the handle of the person working on GPIO, narrowed the search down to the Rock64 sub-forum, and requested search results of all threads where the combination of the criteria appear. Here is the query results:

[Image: IWG6znm.png]

As you can see, when used correctly myBB search can actually be quite useful. Not only does it help you find that you need or join the relevant thread, but it also spares the mods some pointless work of redirecting people to the correct threads.

In short, please use the search function before posting. Thanks.