Problems With Searching

[JimLucas]

...1) This is the bad one:

I have more than once done a Search which turned up no matches on a piece of text I could see in one or more posts. And it definitely wasn't a problem of searching in the wrong Forum. Just now I tried various searches on the combinaton of "anglo" and either "keyboard", "layout", "layouts", or "layout*".

 

I found it difficult to believe that over the past 180 days there had been only two posts containing both the words "anglo" and "layout" (search on "+anglo" and "+layout"), and only three containing both "anglo" and "layouts". "Aha!" said I, "searching for the singular 'layout' doesn't get me the plural 'layouts'." So I tried searching on "+anglo +layout*", which I thought should give me both (a total of 4 posts?). I got 36 hits! They all contained either "layout" or "layouts" (not a single occurrence of "layoutuncertainty", e.g.)

 

So why were all these posts, which clearly satisfied the earlier search criteria, missed in those earlier searches? Conclusion: The Search facility really doesn't work. This is a pity, since I thought it was supposed to be a major improvement in moving from the old Forum to the new.

 

...2) This is just an annoyance, not an error:

Each time I do a Search and then go "Back" to the search input page, my previous input has been erased. If I want to do several similar searches which differ only in detail (e.g., search with a list of 10 excluded words, only one of which changes each time, or repeat a particular search with an extended number of days), I have to re-enter every parameter -- including selecting non-default radio buttons -- every single time!

[David Barnert]

Copy your input before hitting the search button.

[Chris Timson]

Copy your input before hitting the search button.

I'm with Jim on this one. Careless programming on the part of Invision that one should have to.

 

Chris

[David Barnert]

I'm with Jim on this one.

You make it sound like a competition, with me as the opposition. I also agree with Jim (and you) except where Jim says

If I want to do several similar searches which differ only in detail (e.g., search with a list of 10 excluded words, only one of which changes each time, or repeat a particular search with an extended number of days), I have to re-enter every parameter -- including selecting non-default radio buttons -- every single time!

This is not necessary, and I was merely offering a suggestion how to avoid it, not defending the awkward user interface.