Forum software bug report: Search results shown as threads although requested as posts

[porg]

Recently I wanted to search for posts containing "pndmanager" from author "pmprog". The search engine fails in multiple aspects:

Bug 1: Search results are shown as threads, although I requested them to be displayed as posts.

Exception: If your search for yourself (logged in user == author).







Bug 2: Although there CERTAINLY are POSTS (not started threads!) containing "pndmanager" in the title from author "porg", none are shown! Maybe it is simply a bad nomenclature and author only applies if the username started the thread, not if s/he contributed (commented). But AFAIR it once worked as expected.



With this crippled search engine, it doesn't surprise me that people are too lazy to properly refer/quote other posts ("I remember xyz once writing about it (in the xyz thread)"), if they are elder than "behind the most recent page fold". Currently one is forced to manually scan through a thread for the author, or use external search engines, which also sucks, as they are not post-aware but only page-aware (page contains 20 posts!, need to scan manually again).

Improving the efficiency/features of the forum search engine, can help the quality of the discussions!

My previous requests concerning the forum search engine are still unaddressed:

3) Forum software inquiry: Search queries as HTTP GET so that you can simply share/re-use a search query as a URL

4) Please allow 1 + 2 character search strings in the forum search

To be clear and not hurt anyone's feelings: This is not a complaint, as everything here is voluntary work! I am just reporting!

Maybe someone with the technical abilities to improve it, thinks these potentials are worth for the forum discussion quality to go into the labor of fixing it. Thanks.

 

[levi]

Maybe someone with the technical abilities to improve it, thinks these potentials are worth for the forum discussion quality to go into the labor of fixing it. Thanks.

These boards run on closed source software, don't they? I'm not sure what an average Joe can do regardless of their motivation.

 

[porg]

At least go through some configs. Try plugins. Etc.

Enough possible also within closed source SW, if one got the time and access to the infrastructure.

Anyone?

 

[TrashyMG]

Think it's just EvilDragon that deals with the forum.. Dealing with Pandora production, RMAs and such or hunting down minor forum bugs, which do you think should have more priority?

 

[EvilDragon]

Well, the problem is not dealing with it.

The problem is trying to find the issue.

Recently I wanted to search for posts containing "pndmanager" from author "pmprog". The search engine fails in multiple aspects:

Bug 1: Search results are shown as threads, although I requested them to be displayed as posts.

Exception: If your search for yourself (logged in user == author).

I've tried the exact searches as porg did and they properly showed up as posts when I chose posts and thread lists when I selected thread lists.

So, no problem here, tried at home and at work. 

Hard to fix if it works for me.

Can anyone else try these searches?

Bug 2: Although there CERTAINLY are POSTS (not started threads!) containing "pndmanager" in the title from author "porg", none are shown! Maybe it is simply a bad nomenclature and author only applies if the username started the thread, not if s/he contributed (commented). But AFAIR it once worked as expected.

You probably didn't understand the "title" setting.

A title is ONLY given at the first post of a thread.

If you look for "pndmanager", "only as title", "pmprog" as author, you get a result, but you never started a thread.

So it behaves as it should here as well.

With this crippled search engine, it doesn't surprise me that people are too lazy to properly refer/quote other posts ("I remember xyz once writing about it (in the xyz thread)"), if they are elder than "behind the most recent page fold". Currently one is forced to manually scan through a thread for the author, or use external search engines, which also sucks, as they are not post-aware but only page-aware (page contains 20 posts!, need to scan manually again).

That's not really possible, yes.

Improving the efficiency/features of the forum search engine, can help the quality of the discussions!

But it won't help much.

The search engine will be updated with v4.0 of IPB, not before.

http://community.invisionpower.com/topic/366357-searching-needs-significant-improvement/#entry2328784

3) Forum software inquiry: Search queries as HTTP GET so that you can simply share/re-use a search query as a URL

Not possible.

4) Please allow 1 + 2 character search strings in the forum search

Changed that, but 1 character doesn't really make sense, so I changed it to 2 characters.

 

[levi]

Yeah, just tried searching for results 'as posts' either for myself or other users, and the results are shown as full posts as requested.

 

[porg]

Bug 1) EvilDragon and Levi could not reproduce it. My bad luck then.

Bug 2) already feared that this is by design. So it is not possible to show me all posts of "userx" made to the thread entitled "y"? No problem? Just scan through it manually for 30min until you find it! You see, therefore no-one properly quotes/refers to anything elder than from the recent page.

Let's hope that IPB 4 will improve in the overall search engine matter, possibly also allowing 3) HTTP-get-searches.

4) 1 character doesn't make sense? Hmm.. so what you are searching for "Game Title 2" or "Game title 4"? ...

 

[EvilDragon]

4) Then you use " " to search for the phrase, that does work. Just not one character as single character.

 

[porg]

"Game Title 4" then, you mean?

Thanks for the hint!