Add some three-letter words to forum search exception list

[gwyneth]

It would be incredibly useful and time-saving if we could search the forum for three-letter words. If enabling that minimum isn't feasible, how about adding some important terms to the exception list (actually, should be on the list even if minimum changes, so the list could stay even through updates or lack of indexing after setting change).

DNS
PHP
CGI
FTP
XML
CSS
SSI
SSL
SSH
PCI
PDF
SVN
MP4
MP3
SEO
(URL is probably too common to add; SEO and URI might not be)
tar and rar (yes, c/should be .tar and .rar but...)

Those are some that come to mind--was going to alphabetize but 'DNS' is, IMO, probably as important to be searchable as the rest put together.

[Taubin]

That's one of the thing that drives me nuts about most forums. Lack of three letter searching. Think it's a vBulletin issue, as it seems to be extremely prevalent on the VB forums I frequent

Even if one were to search "DNS propagation time", the search engine will completely ignore "DNS" and just search for propagation time. In this case, not a big deal but, in some cases, it causes a bunch of results that don't actually have anything to do with what's actually being searched. It also will skip threads that answer a particular question, which leads to more of the same threads being posted again and again. I myself, am guilty of this.

Hopefully, there is an easy way to resolve it though =)

[RainbowViper]

I believe the minimum number of characters in a search term is set outside of any Forum/CMS software. Umm.... in MySQL/Full-Search if I remember right. I never went this route. I installed Sphinx instead.

While not really suited to a Shared environment, it CAN be installed in a multi-user configuration. I did this on my dedi, for my live and test installs of IP Board, and it works beautifully.

Sphinx would solve the "3-letter" problem here, but I don't know if HG considers that a viable option.

[gwyneth]

vBulletin does have an admin setting for minimum number of characters searched (default is 4), and it also has an exception list for terms that have fewer characters than whatever the minimum set.

[Abomination]

Originally Posted by gwyneth

vBulletin does have an admin setting for minimum number of characters searched (default is 4), and it also has an exception list for terms that have fewer characters than whatever the minimum set.

There are 2 completely different search options, Full text which uses the MySQL search option ft_min_word_len (that may be in a file called my.cnf), and the vBulletin search.

If the Full Text search is used then all the search options in the AdminCP are ignored.

[eLIANT]

But if HG does implement the exception list, then put these on it:
300
401
404
500

[gwyneth]

Originally Posted by eLIANT

But if HG does implement the exception list, then put these on it:
300
401
404
500

Excellent. Yes, and the other Apache error codes, rare though they might be.

[EarlyOut]

Originally Posted by gwyneth

Yes, and the other Apache error codes, rare though they might be.

I got a few 416s the other day. I had to Google it!

There are even some two-letter words that should probably be searchable, like IP and OS.

[eLIANT]

And whatever happened to the option to put the word "AND" between search terms?

Man, I miss that!

[TonyB]

Here's my current list of exceptions for my small community vb: vb vbb php sql cat dog cop atv map tax cpa mcc

I'm adding a few from this thread. IP OS

It may be better to just add a google search option to the board (a simple no-edit mod IIRC). That will index everything and cache also.

[RainbowViper]

Originally Posted by Abomination

There are 2 completely different search options, Full text which uses the MySQL search option ft_min_word_len (that may be in a file called my.cnf), and the vBulletin search.

If the Full Text search is used then all the search options in the AdminCP are ignored.

IPB has an "internal" search option as well, but it's not all that efficient, and puts a fair load on the database. That's why they recommend you use the MySQL Fulltext, or Sphinx. And if you do use Fulltext then the minimum characters you set in the IPB Admin CP is ignored, as with vB.

But.... how well does the internal vB search work? Does it have the same issue as IPB, in that it puts a high load on the database?

Either way, Sphinx is still a much better option. But as I said, HG may not have that option.

[Abomination]

Originally Posted by RainbowViper

IPB has an "internal" search option as well, but it's not all that efficient, and puts a fair load on the database. That's why they recommend you use the MySQL Fulltext, or Sphinx. And if you do use Fulltext then the minimum characters you set in the IPB Admin CP is ignored, as with vB.

But.... how well does the internal vB search work? Does it have the same issue as IPB, in that it puts a high load on the database?

Either way, Sphinx is still a much better option. But as I said, HG may not have that option.

Non-bold part: As far as I know it works exactly as you described in vB. MySQL Full text search is better for a number of reasons. The minimum length for full text search can be set on the server, and I may indeed go to a vps solution for that very reason (cannot change that on shared hosting account).

Bold part: My distinct impression is Sphinx is an awesome product but am not sure that would be appropriate for the hostgator forums. I certainly would not argue if they wanted to implement it here!

[gwyneth]

Originally Posted by eLIANT

And whatever happened to the option to put the word "AND" between search terms?

Man, I miss that!

Yes, one of the advantages of the fulltext search is supposed to be that it allows Boolean searches...so wonder what that means about which of the two search types is operative.