Submit Hint Search The Forums LinksStatsPollsHeadlinesRSS
14,000 hints and counting!

Search engine has been enhanced... Site News
While working on upgrading the site to the latest Geeklog engine, I discovered a relatively simple modification to the search engine that greatly improves its usefulness. While the new site won't be up for a little while, I took a couple minutes last night and added the modification to the existing search engine. As of now, you can (finally!) search on words instead of phrases on the site. I haven't updated the instructions page as of yet, but here's how it works.

To search on a phrase (the old style), use the search box (or the advanced search page) as always - just enter the phrase. For example, searching on (no quotes) 'tcsh shell path' will find only those hints that contain the exact phrase. You probably won't get a match for most phrase searches, given the odds of guessing the right combo of letters.

Searching on words, however, is much more useful. To perform a word search (for example, any hint containing "tcsh,", "shell," and "path,"), just enter the words separated by commas - 'tcsh, shell, path' (again, no quotes).

This change makes the search engine much more effective at finding old information, as you can now narrow the search scope effectively by using a few keywords. For now, this modified search is available only when searching hints (not comments). Try it out and let me know if you run into any glitches!

-rob.
    •    
  • Currently 2.28 / 5
  You rated: 4 / 5 (18 votes cast)
 
[4,125 views]  

Search engine has been enhanced... | 2 comments | Create New Account
Click here to return to the 'Search engine has been enhanced...' hint
The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. This site is not responsible for what they say.
Rob you rock!
Authored by: Titanium Man on Oct 23, '02 09:39:19PM

Rob you rock! But you already know this ;-)



[ Reply to This | # ]
Geeklog deficiency
Authored by: pythagorous on Oct 24, '02 01:44:59PM

Please, oh please, Rob, take the small amount of time it takes (and, admittedly, quite a bit of processor, at first) and enable MySQL FULLTEXT search. It'll just be so very much more reliable and good at searching, as opposed to the traditional basic search...

I'm glad you found the % though.

(If you don't know how to do this and want to know, email me and I'll walk you through it!)



[ Reply to This | # ]