It seems like any built-in forum search of less than 4 characters automatically returns no results.
This makes it very difficult to search a thread for "GPS" or "SIP" or other such terms.
Is there a way around this or can it be changed to allow fewer characters?
Using google search is not a good alternative as it searches the whole site and not a particular forum or thread.
thx.
Related
i am actually looking for some searching tips rather than giving out some.
sometimes i find it more useful to search for a post using a search engine like google and costrain the search to the developers website rather than look through the search engine here in the forum.google return the search with a list sometimes in a total different order than the Site search engine.
this forum is growing every day of uncountable numbers of posts and for people that are just starting off learning what this forum has to offer it is a bit frustrating and difficult to understand where to start.
are my searching skills extremely poor or there is a secret out there than i am unaware of? :shock:
the most important one I think is to choose Search for all terms
Why cant this be the default when searching for more than one word?
Hi,
Are there still issues with searching this forum with search terms less than 3 characters as existed before?
I have tried doing the following search in the advanced search:
8GB SD
Sorry - no matches. Please try some different terms.
I have a hard time believing that is the case.
This isnt the first time the search is making life difficult. Is there also a way of defaulting the search to ALL TERMS?
thanks
I find searching using Google advanced search is the best way to find info on this forum.
Just type in what you're looking for in the advanced search page and get it to look in this forum.
Hope you understand how I've worded it. Its not as difficult as I make it appear.
Hope this is of use.
To tell you the truth... the whole search function leaves a lot to be desired.
The stalwarts of this forum are constantly critesizing the newbies for not using the search function but the hits it returns are as good as useless. I try repeated variations of my searches and cannot find a single relevant post within the first 20.
Maybe moderators should mention the Goolge option as bieng the best way to find info.
Thanks for your confirmation guys... I was hoping the answer wasn't going to involve google search and that the internal search mechanism would be better.
Cheers!
I've just been reading a thread in this forum titled 'Car kit issues with WM6' I read it and decided to do a search for similar threads by using the 'search this forum' text box. I typed in "car kit" (without the inverted commas) and it returned no results even though a thread exists with my search query in its title. I also tried the advanced search and selected 'search titles only' to no avail.
No wonder noobs get shot down in flames or am i missing something???
I'm only guessing, but it may just ignore search terms with 3 letter words or less. Many forums do this to stop the inevitable lag and problems when someone searches for "a" in an attempt to slow the forum down, which it does.
There are many people out there who run meaningless searches on forums to eat bandwidth or grind it to a halt, this is one of many methods to stop it.
I've got the admin's attention on this problem. Thanks.
Meanwhile, if you want to do a search, you can try using google and use the 'site:' feature. Example, if you want to search 'car kit', type this
"car kit" site:xda-developers.com
UPDATE:
It seems that it is known that the site can't do search on 4 letters or less words. Use one of these
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=304582
I know this has been covered before and the answer was to use Google search. The problem I have with the solution is that it is overly broad.
If I want to search a particular forum only for a 3-letter word, is there a way to do it? For example, how do I search for the term, 'GPS' only in the Kaiser ROM development forum?
If I enter 'Kaiser' and 'GPS', I get all sorts of results that I don't want.
Also, may I suggest that if a user enters a search term with only 3 characters, the forum presents a message why it will not search, rather than the generic 'no reuslts found'?
Thanks.
This is going to be a moaning post, which falls in line with the topics of discussion in the forum description.
Like many of you most likely, I've been lurking, contributing if it makes sense, and relying on XDA for a long time. It feels like a decade by now. This is the most frustrated I've ever been with the Search functionality of the website. It's so bad, I'm writing this post, but also I feel like competing sites (there are none in reality) could lure forum users away with nothing more than an intuitive, easy to use search functionality.
For example, every single time you go to search something, XDA for some reason defaults to searching Everything. If I'm in a specific forum, and sought out that forum (which is the only way to get to something that you specifically need given the search won't produce it), why would I need to search the entire site seconds after entering that particular forum. I have not found a setting to allow me to set the default search to search specific forum and recall the previous site iteration as having the ability to easily within a click or two, search the forum itself for a specific thread.
Secondly, searching for items that have more than a single word is pointless. The query results are from all over the site, and largely not related. Additionally, the search results apparently don't believe in offering sort or filter capabilities post submission of a search query.
Third, do you really not follow a boolean logic? Taking the aforementioned example, if I use double quotes to signify a specific string or phrase, the query result is blank.
I'm going to keep adding to this because later because I need to go, but I loved this site, and I want to ensure this feedback is out there. Please for the love of god, do something about this.
Unfortunately, I tried to search for the ability to provide feedback directly and was unable to come up with anything. I shouldn't have to build a Google CSE or run a 'site:' search to produce a specific result on this website.
Just a couple of years ago, I could come into the site, enter a model number or SKU or something specific like that and immediately be able to access specific forums or threads. I just tried to search for SM-990 and nothing but Motorola results were produced. What?