The search facility

[dalesponyrider]

I don't know why it is but my search facility is a bit random in it's accuracy.

I very rarely get a result even if I put a word in that I know is in a past thread.

Does anyone else have problems?

[olivia]

Hi Linda,

A few people have mentioned this to me, but I'm not sure what it could be.

The first thing to suggest is are you changing the boxes that say "Posted within the last" and "Maximum results" - they are RIGHT at the bottom of the search page.

These are set to 7 days and 10 results respectively, which makes for MUCH faster searching, but also severely limits the number of results you get. By changing these boxes you will get many more results, although it will take slightly longer.


However this isn't resolving most peoples problems, so there definitely is something wrong.

I will look into it and get back to you all.

Olivia

[dalesponyrider]

I do change the boxes Olivia. Thanks for looking into this.

[olivia]

Hi Linda (and everyone else),

Well I have had a bit of a play - could you all try the search engine tonight to see if thats worked?

Many thanks

Olivia

[dalesponyrider]

Well I've put the same word in as I did this morning and it didn't work again I'm afraid. I'm sure it used to???

[Debbie]

I know it used to because I used it not all that long ago, but Linda's right, its gone wonky.

This morning I typed in search for 'ice', and I clicked the last 30 days and then I clicked to find 100 posts. Well it came back with 100 posts, but I got all sorts. ?? They weren't about the recent ice storms at all, they were pulled from various threads on going Barefoot, and Leann's post about her lovely dollhouse.

I scanned through, but didn't see 'ice' inside the posts.

...edited because I tried another search. This time I used Blossom and did a search for threads created by me in Horsey Chat. I checked for 60 days, 100 hits. This time it came back with nothing.

I think we broke our toy Olivia!

[harveydales]

Debbie - I just ran your "ice" search in the same way you did and it did work for me. Trouble is it pulls posts with nice, advice etc ie any word containing "ice". Hence Leann's nice dolls house.

I'm going to try your Blossom search now..............

Editing to say I've just tried your Blossom search, again using the same parameters as you did, and it came up with loads of posts.

[Debbie]

I did think it was doing that Pam ...ie 'ice' search pulled up 'nice' etc. But I found it odd it wouldn't pull up a Blossom search for me.

I'll give it another try in a few.

...right, if I search for just "Blossom" under Horsey Chat, I come back with all sorts of posts. If I try to search for "Blossom" under Horsey Chat, with a search for all posts by Debbie at the same time, I came back with nothing. For my computer it seemed those two search options were cancelling each other. I need to chose between posts authored by....fill in the blank.... OR a specific word.

[harveydales]

Well that's odd. It worked for me on my old computer - using Blossom and specifying posts by Debbie. Perhaps you need a computer out of the ark to do a search like that! lol

[Debbie]

I daresay it is something to do with my computer more than the search capabilities on here. I'm using Microsoft's Vista and I'm less than impressed with its capabilities. It seems so whiz bang that it blocks itself from doing the simplest of stuffs at times.

[harveydales]

That's interesting, Debbie. I was using our old computer and Windows 98! I will try the same searches on our new laptop which has Vista and report back!

[olivia]

Do you think it's worth running a survey/poll to find out if it is those using Vista/IE7 who are having a problem or if it's everyone?

Olivia

[harveydales]

I was having trouble with my old Windows 98 computer but it now seems OK. So i don't think it is a Vista thing.

[harveydales]

I've just done Debbie's Blossom search with the laptop and Vista. At first it came up with nothing then when i changed "Debbie" to "debbie" it cam up with loads of results. So I guess it does work on Vista.

[Debbie]

I tried the same thing as you Pam, and came back with 30 something hits. The lightbulb came on as I switched to the lowercase "D" When I registered, it wouldn't register with the capital "D" only lowercase for me. But I switched my display name to the capital D and plum forgot. Computers do not however.