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stovax

Member
 Cambridgeshire
Am I doing something wrong with regards to searching the forum for previous answers, as it doesn't work how I'd expect?

For example, I started a new thread about a "replacement/spare keys" earlier because I couldn't find an easy way to locate previous threads about the subject (which must have been discussed to death already).

If I enter into the search replacement key (which is equivalent to +replacement +key) I'd expect it to return results that contain both replacement and key in any order. I'd also expect key to match keyfob, etc. What it returns is a huge amount of results that contain either word, not both, mostly matching replacement.

If I enter into the search "replacement key" I'd expect to get an exact match for that string - it returns various useful results (I tried this after starting my new thread!). However, is that actually forcing an exact match of my search string, or is it doing what I expected the above search to do and looking for both replacement and key in matching posts?

Happy to grind through phpbb documentation if that's the easiest way to understand what's going on :)
 
use

Replacement + Key

also select 'topic titles only'

Results give 13 pages and you want page 9 which gives the below message thread

http://www.z4-forum.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=15703&p=229694&hilit=Replacement+Key#p229694
 
Are you confusing the + in your URL with a + used in a search term? You advised the search term Replacement + Key, but linked to a thread located via the search term Replacement Key.

The hilit parameter in your link is Replacement+key, whereas it would be Replacement+%2B+Key or Replacement%20%2B%20Key if the search was as you suggested. Url encoding frequently changes a space to +, hence the confusion. The + is encoded to %2B.

Selecting 'topic titles only' does reduce the amount of results, but still isn't providing the search ability I'd like. Quite often I like to search all posts as some threads have unrelated titles as well as going off on a tangent to the original question.

A bit more experimenting led me to try an extra word in the search, banjo replacement key, which showed very few results as it seemed to restrict on both banjo and replacement. It seems what's happening is that the search term key is being ignored, probably because it's only 3 letters. Can anyone confirm this and provide details on how the indexing has been setup on this forum? Thanks :)
 
The 'more than 3 letters' is a default phpbb setting, rather than something setup incorrectly on this forum, but can it be changed? Quite often I want to search for an acronym, or just a short word (key, nav, bmw, 108, oil, etc), so allowing 3 letter words would be very useful. Silently dropping them from the search is a little frustrating, but that's phpbb doing :thumbsdown:

The resultant indexes will be bigger, but as long as the webhost can support it, this post explains how to set it up in the control panel.
https://www.phpbb.com/community/viewtopic.php?f=46&t=1494295#p8946615
 
Sounds technical, the boss sorts that out :smart:

If you want three letter searching then you can use the Google box at the top of the page instead of the forum search, or use the site:www.z4-forum.com on the regular Google page.
 
More so sounds like a problem that isn't really an issue

A bit less typing and you would have found what you wanted by now....

:)
 
If you want to be my personal search result filter, by all means :poke:

Recently, I was looking for information about 108 alloys on the forum. Problems with cracking, splitting rims for refurbishment and any general discussion about them that might have been interesting. As I can't search for alloy 108 it is impractical to even try. Yes, that search returns some useful results, but it doesn't force alloy and 108 which is an issue.

Satellite navigation is awkward as well because it's often referred to as sat nav - a sat nav search actually returns nothing. If you're searching on the off chance of finding firmware information or retrofit instructions you might well think such topics have never been discussed before.

Wondermike, thanks for the pointer to the google search box at the top of the page, it does allow me to search these topics and locate relevant threads. Be nice if the forum search can be changed as well :)
 
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