Feature request:search this thread

tmf

Hi,

recently I was browsing ubuntu forums, and noticed a small feature - search this thread. I think it would be very useful here.

What do you think?

tmf

tmf · Posted: Thu Dec 15, 2005 7:28 pm Post subject:

One more thing - I'd encourage you to write why you think it would be useful or not. To be first - many times I've seen situation, where people post their problem in huge thread, and get response like "look on the third page of this thread, it's solved there". Ability to effectively search thread (and willing to do search) would cut that situation off.

tmf

pjp · Administrator Joined: 16 Apr 2002 Posts: 20476

Without feedback, I'd ignore anyone voting no... they're probably just being contrary. I can't think of a functional reason to not implement some form of the feature.
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Shadow Skill · Veteran Joined: 04 Dec 2004 Posts: 1023

I think it would be a great feature, I would love to use such a thing on some of the larger threads.
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batistuta · Veteran Joined: 29 Jul 2005 Posts: 1384 Location: Aachen

Every time I search for something like "vnc gcc4", then I get as an match the gcc threads (among others). The problem is that these threads have hundred of posts spreaded around several pages. How could I know in which page was my keyword found? It would take too much time to go through all 24 pages and every possible thread... :roll:

Thanks

Akhouk · Posted: Thu Feb 09, 2006 7:25 am Post subject:

From "Quick search" you can choose to search "posts" rather than "topics".
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sinetific · n00b Joined: 05 Nov 2003 Posts: 26

I'm not sure if this has been recommended yet or not, but when searching clicking the link to a post always lands you on the first page of the thread instead of the page on which the term you searched for appears. Many posts in the forum are 30+ pages. This makes finding the information you're looking for quite cumbersome.
It would be nice if searching for the term took you to the exact post it was in instead of the first post in the thread. Is this a possibility or maybe I'm just missing some obvious functionality of the board that already does this.

kallamej · Posted: Sat Feb 18, 2006 7:14 am Post subject:

Yes, this has been mentioned loads of times, and the answer is, as always, to select Display results as: Posts from the search page. :wink:

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silverpig · Posted: Sun Feb 19, 2006 11:51 pm Post subject:

I love these forums. Every single time I have a problem (whether it be with gentoo, or the forum search) the solution is always posted here

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Da Fox · Guru Joined: 06 Jul 2005 Posts: 341

although that works (but not great) I often find that I want to search for a certain term in the current thread, for example to see if something has been mentioned before, or if someone says 'yeah, that's been mentioned a couple of pages back'. In such a case it would be very usefull to be able to search within the current thread, instead of going through the entire forum.
Practical example:
When I had a firefox question a while back (I am having a problem with the adblock extension) I first searched the forums for my problem using rather specific terms, which didn't give any usefull results. I then had to go through every page of the 'Firefox 1.5 problems' thread to look for the word 'adblock' which took ages, whereas if I could just have searched the 'Firefox 1.5 problems' thread for the word 'adblock' I would have been done in seconds.
So please, put in a 'seach within this thread' option ^^
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Taladar · Last edited by Taladar on Fri Feb 24, 2006 1:05 am; edited 1 time in total

I am sure most of you had the problem before:

In the Gentoo Forums we have lots of long threads with 10+ pages.
The search feature just shows you which threads contain your search keywords.
Sometimes the threads are way too long to search by hand.
It should be easy for someone skilled PHP to extend the search feature to show the exact post in the search results.

Do you think Gentoo should do something like this?

Edit: Poll ate the fourth option (it was the first poll I created). Of course the other combination is also possible.

/dev/random · Posted: Fri Feb 24, 2006 12:19 am Post subject:

Other forums have a search in thread feature (Ubuntu forums come to mind). I think it's some sort of limitation of phpbb, but I could be completely wrong. If it is I think we'll have to live with it because changing from phpbb would be too much of a pain and could result in lost threads and other such nasty things.

Tasslehoff · Posted: Fri Feb 24, 2006 12:45 am Post subject:

a couple things you can do is use google to search the forum or have the results displayed as posts rather then subjects.

revertex · l33t Joined: 23 Apr 2003 Posts: 806

try google.

just use someting like this

omp · Posted: Fri Feb 24, 2006 1:26 am Post subject:

Go to the Search page and set Display results as: to Posts instead of Topics.
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HydroSan · Posted: Fri Feb 24, 2006 1:32 am Post subject:

The search on these forums are is so unreliable. I just use Google and tell it to hit only forums.gentoo.org.
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Taladar · Posted: Fri Feb 24, 2006 1:51 am Post subject:

I really can't see why I never noticed that. I mostly use the Quick Search but I should have looked on the Search page first of course.

Thanks omp.

Da Fox · Guru Joined: 06 Jul 2005 Posts: 341

anyone who says "Go to the Search page and set Display results as: to Posts instead of Topics." clearly hasn't read my previous post :/
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revertex · l33t Joined: 23 Apr 2003 Posts: 806

pblinux · n00b Joined: 07 Jan 2006 Posts: 17

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Archangel1 · Veteran Joined: 21 Apr 2004 Posts: 1212 Location: Work

kallamej · Posted: Sun Mar 05, 2006 7:25 am Post subject:

cokey · Advocate Joined: 23 Apr 2004 Posts: 3355

I dont see why another search for threads would be bad. It would be especially good if there was a way to block out the "non searchable" items and words because you would only be searching a thread
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tomk · Posted: Mon Mar 06, 2006 9:53 am Post subject: