TIPS 3-Letter Forum Search

[hraynor]

Ok, so this is not against PIAF itself, but with the forum here.

Is there anyway we could get the search function changed so it would allow for SHORTER search terms? I believe right now each term has to be at least 4 characters.

In a technical environment, there are MANY three letter acronyms that this makes it impossible to search on (SIP, PBX, IAX, NAT, etc) and I have run into this many times where it took me far too long to try to get something reasonable that it would allow me to search on.

ie: a common example might be something like:

SIP NAT traversal

which if searched for, yields:

The search term you specified (SIP) is under the minimum word length (4) and therefore will not be found. Please make this term longer. If this term contains a wildcard, please make this term more specific.
Just a suggestion.

 

[tshif]

Try a google search in this way:

SIP NAT traversal site: pbxinaflash.com/forum

There's nothing can be done for the search limits in the forum software. Ward has tried before -

 

[robinmurray]

firefox search plugin

I have created an opensearch plugin fo firefox that will use google to search the pbx in a flash forums.
It can be found at this link
http://mycroft.mozdev.org/search-engines.html?name=PBX+in+a+Flash+Forums

Let me know your thoughts

 

[wardmundy]

Very slick.

 

[sircolin]

Thanks For Posting What a Great Idea !

 

[kevsworld]

nice tool - very useful. What stupid forum software that doesn't allow 3 letter search!!

 

[wardmundy]

Heh. Only the forum software you have to pay for.

 

[YoungOrtho]

Vbulletin lets you specify the minimum word length (Search Index Minimum Word Length), where you can specify 3 letters if you want. However, your database size is going to increase, perhaps significantly.

 

[robf]

this should probably be a sticky.

if you're a chrome user like me then you can just type the search query directly in to the address field as:

site:pbxinaflash.com search_term1 search_term2 search_term3

 

[MaqAttaq]

Heh. Only the forum software you have to pay for.

That isn't entirely true. Under Admin CP, go to...

Settings > Options > Message Searching Options

Look for "Search Index Minimum Word Length" and change it from 4 to whatever your heart desires. Right below that, you can also set a "Search Index Maximum Word Length" (my minimum is set to 2, maximum is set to 25). Once you reset that, you will have to...

Maintenance > Update Counters

Then go to "Rebuild Search Index". Follow the instructions, and let your system reindex. It should take a few minutes for 62,000 posts. It took about 2-3 hours for about 700,000 posts for me.