$4000 Prop Design Contest Bounty and Why Can't I Search This Forum!
Drone
Posts: 433
I try to introduce developers to the Propeller and cite the Propeller Forum as a wonderful resource; which it is thanks to the tempered, tolerant and very knowledgeable community here. That said; one of the biggest complaints I get from Prop newbies is that they can't search the Prop Forum. Yes I know there are various ways around this (why isn't there a sticky about how to search the Prop Forum? Are you ashamed Parallax to admit local search is broken?)
Then I see the Propeller Design Contest 2009 (PDC09) has a $4000 USD total bounty. I posit: why would Parallax put up $4000 for the PDC09 when that money would be better spent hiring a consultant to move this forum to an extensible open-source content management system where search actually works? I realize how difficult this may be to accomplish, but if you can toss $4k for the PDC09 prizes, you can also spend $4K to move this forum to a new platform.
Long overdue Parallax... Please address this.
With Respect (but Still Frustrated)... David
Then I see the Propeller Design Contest 2009 (PDC09) has a $4000 USD total bounty. I posit: why would Parallax put up $4000 for the PDC09 when that money would be better spent hiring a consultant to move this forum to an extensible open-source content management system where search actually works? I realize how difficult this may be to accomplish, but if you can toss $4k for the PDC09 prizes, you can also spend $4K to move this forum to a new platform.
Long overdue Parallax... Please address this.
With Respect (but Still Frustrated)... David
Comments
http://forums.parallax.com/showthread.php?p=841074
Things would be much nicer if any search function would return a list of threads, by title, that possibly contain what you are looking for. Rather than a million links to every post in every relevant thread. Then a sub search within a selected thread maybe.
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For me, the past is not over yet.
Something like http://www.opensourcecms.com/
I should be able to convert the forum over to one of these systems. I can use the same spidering technick i will be using with the forum archive. I could even host it if using one of the php versions.
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propmod_us and propmod_1x1 are in stock. Only $30. PCB available for $5
Want to make projects and have Gadget Gangster sell them for you? propmod-us_ps_sd and propmod-1x1 are now available for use in your Gadget Gangster Projects.
Need to upload large images or movies for use in the forum. you can do so at uploader.propmodule.com for free.
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propmod_us and propmod_1x1 are in stock. Only $30. PCB available for $5
Want to make projects and have Gadget Gangster sell them for you? propmod-us_ps_sd and propmod-1x1 are now available for use in your Gadget Gangster Projects.
Need to upload large images or movies for use in the forum. you can do so at uploader.propmodule.com for free.
▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔
propmod_us and propmod_1x1 are in stock. Only $30. PCB available for $5
Want to make projects and have Gadget Gangster sell them for you? propmod-us_ps_sd and propmod-1x1 are now available for use in your Gadget Gangster Projects.
Need to upload large images or movies for use in the forum. you can do so at uploader.propmodule.com for free.
Go to Google. Search for "zicog". The ZiCog project thread comes in the first hit !!!
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For me, the past is not over yet.
You got lucky ;-)
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2) 25 hits & ZiCog first
BUT: If in the second case you limit the search to forums.parallax.com domain you receive again 1330 hits (but still your thread is the first)
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· Propeller Object Exchange (last Publications / Updates)
http://www.google.com/cse/home?cx=014602381951657504386:0v5gwyvny3m&hl=en
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Quit buying all those fixed voltage regulators, and·get an Adjustable Power Supply·for your projects!· Includes an LED testing terminal!
*-NEW-* SD Card Adapter·Now available!· Add extra memory to your next Propeller project with ease!
It is a marked improvement over the existing search engine however [noparse]:)[/noparse]
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We do take the forum problems seriously and we've got an internal forum tool under evaluation at this moment. Sometimes I wish our customers could take a look inside Parallax to understand what we're doing about customer requests like the one you've made - we'll try to communicate our plans better from this point forward. This particular forum software integrates with the rest of our web site and uses the search engine built into our web site, so it should be much more useful (and we could eliminate the Google box that presently does this job at http://search.parallax.com). The new forum project is running in parallel with the Propeller Design Contest, as you noted. We should be able to open it up for the general forum members fairly soon. We realize that the forums are the most valuable communication tool and we will handle the transition to the best of our abilities.
As for hiring an outside consultant, it's not necessary in this case. We've done the forum migration (with all messages in tact) on our own in the past, and we want to do it again the same way.
Sincerely,
Ken Gracey
Parallax Inc.
- Ken
can you modify your custom search-site to display 100 results on one page.
Scrolling down is much faster than clicking second page .... third page ..... fourth page .......
thank you in advance
Stefan
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Nyamekye,
Like most anything, how much service depends on how much money you pay. Google search boxes and their associated service plans index the number of pages you pay to index. We hit 100K pages (PDFs, web site pages, forum pages) really quickly. It's not about HDD size alone, apparently. That's my limited understanding. All I really know is that we're at an important junction: switch to new forums so we get a better search tool (and solve other problems along the way) or upgrade the Google hardware and continue to have a fairly lame forum software.
You guys would be pleased to know that today was a big day for this forum problem. We set in motion a small team to get the new tool evaluated next week so we can start making some decisions. We'll be bringing you guys in to the forum review part as soon as possible. We hear your concerns, and they're the same as ours.
Ken Gracey
BTW, Google itself does a pretty good job of indexing this forum as well.
Always check that resource as well. [noparse];)[/noparse]
OBC
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New to the Propeller?
Visit the: The Propeller Pages @ Warranty Void.
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Nyamekye,
if doesn't bother you I'll keep it into my signature.
PS.: If you remember some old interesting info and who has posted it the shortest way (IMO) to find it is still the forum built-in search with the "poster nickname" in the search field·and "posted by" as search method.
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· Propeller Object Exchange (last Publications / Updates);·· Vaati's custom search
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propmod_us and propmod_1x1 are in stock. Only $30. PCB available for $5
Want to make projects and have Gadget Gangster sell them for you? propmod-us_ps_sd and propmod-1x1 are now available for use in your Gadget Gangster Projects.
Need to upload large images or movies for use in the forum. you can do so at uploader.propmodule.com for free.
@Ken Gracey Thanks for the explanation. It makes a lot of sense. In my first-post I was just frustrated with search at the moment and didn't consider integration with the rest of the Parallax Web site long-term, as you pointed out. My apologies. Perhaps there should be a sticky about developments/changes regarding the forum so we know when and what changes are coming.
@dMajo You said, "PS.: If you remember some old interesting info and who has posted it the shortest way (IMO) to find it is still the forum built-in search with the "poster nickname" in the search field and "posted by" as search method." I Must have missed this. can you provide an example? I can't seem to get this to work with the forum-native Search button.
Best Regards, David
Post Edited (Drone) : 9/25/2009 7:16:36 PM GMT
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· Propeller Object Exchange (last Publications / Updates);·· Vaati's custom search
Just want you to know that your requests are heard by our team. We're listening (and talking!).
Ken Gracey
Parallax Inc.
Where's Chip???!!! (Giggle..) [noparse]:)[/noparse]
Yup, there's a way to spend $4,000 quickly.. [noparse]:)[/noparse]
OBC
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New to the Propeller?
Visit the: The Propeller Pages @ Warranty Void.
Ken Gracey
Parallax Inc.