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Is there anyway to add another parameter to this search engine? — Parallax Forums

Is there anyway to add another parameter to this search engine?

Capt. QuirkCapt. Quirk Posts: 872
edited 2007-04-08 06:35 in General Discussion
Is it possible to search from or between a given date(s)?

Comments

  • Chris SavageChris Savage Parallax Engineering Posts: 14,406
    edited 2007-03-23 14:08
    Hello,

    The built-in Search Engine doesn’t work very well…Because of that we have implemented our own search engine listed in the sticky thread in this forum, however that doesn’t easily allow you to search a range of dates. It is however much more powerful so it is still easy to narrow down results by keyword. I have use the + and – symbols to tweak the results right down to an exact post from 2 years ago. Take care.

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    Chris Savage
    Parallax Tech Support
  • Capt. QuirkCapt. Quirk Posts: 872
    edited 2007-04-05 23:31
    How about increasing the # of searches returned from 200 to 500 or multiple pages of search results.

    If I did a search for posts by you (Chris Savage) and gave it the parameters of "any date" and "200" posts, I would be lucky if the search went back more than a few months. Trying to do searches on the other·prolific contributors like·Pual Baker, Jon, Bean, Gunther and the all the Peter's. I am lucky to find search results past last thanksgiving (06).

    I don't need it myself, but I have seen enough·people on this forum that try to do their homework first. Before they ask.

    BTW, I have tried what you suggested and I will try again. But my returns brought all of the first search parameter and none of the second. Are you using spaces like Jon + SXB or should it be Jon+SXB. Or does it need to be much more specific?


    Post Edited (Capt. Quirk) : 4/5/2007 11:38:27 PM GMT
  • PARPAR Posts: 285
    edited 2007-04-06 05:15
    Capt. Quirk said...

    How about increasing the # of searches returned from 200 to 500 or multiple pages of search results.

    If I did a search for posts by you (Chris Savage)... Trying to do searches on the other·prolific contributors like·Pual Baker, Jon, Bean, Gunther and the all the Peter's. I am lucky to find search results past last thanksgiving (06).

    I don't need it myself, but I have seen enough·people on this forum that try to do their homework first. Before they ask. ...

    I wonder if it isn't possible to allow searches in search.parallax.com (using Google's "advanced" search) for posters' names (their user signin names, or their id numbers)? Not the name they may opt to sign the bottom of their posting with, but the name that reliably/consistently identifies a posting as coming from "so and so". I have not figured out if it can be done --anyone know?

    While this is possible to search for the poster's name·using the built-in search of the forum's dotNetBB software, that search function is not very discriminating, and it only goes back one (or two?) years max.

    PAR
  • Chris SavageChris Savage Parallax Engineering Posts: 14,406
    edited 2007-04-06 05:35
    With our Google Search Engine you can easily specify ANY or ALL for the search words. You can also do more advanced stuff, for example, say you want to search for posts from, “Chris Savage” (notice the quotes) +DS1302 +Digital +Thermostat (notice the pluses) –link (notice the minus sign). That will search for posts I or someone made about the Digital Thermostat Code but ignore posts where it was a link to that post (I usually use that word when linking). Take care.

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    Chris Savage
    Parallax Tech Support
  • Capt. QuirkCapt. Quirk Posts: 872
    edited 2007-04-06 06:26
    Chris that does work much better,·before I was trying statements like "pjv + Pual Baker" and not having much luck with the +/- signs in the·wrong places.

    Thank you

    Bill
  • PARPAR Posts: 285
    edited 2007-04-08 04:46
    Chris Savage (Parallax) said...
    With our Google Search Engine you can easily specify ANY or ALL for the search words. You can also do more advanced stuff, for example, say you want to search for posts from, “Chris Savage” (notice the quotes) +DS1302 +Digital +Thermostat (notice the pluses) –link (notice the minus sign). That will search for posts I or someone made about the Digital Thermostat Code but ignore posts where it was a link to that post (I usually use that word when linking). Take care.

    Chris, What I was asking about is how to search for the postings of a "Registered Member" name (as such --consistent data in every posting by that person). For members like "Chris Savage", it works ok, but for people like "PAR", it doesn't because that string isn't unique to one member (or even to any member· --perhaps a poor selection of a name on my part?).

    I did find that by specifying, for example,·the "Date Joined Oct·2006" and the
    "Total Posts : 97", as well as the "registered-name" and "Registered Name" strings, you can pretty much narrow down the (most recent 100) hits to all and only legitimate postings by "registered-name". The combination of registered-name and total-posts fairly well homes in on a unique member('s postings).
    Two issues. The "Total Posts" as shown in a recent "registered-name"'s posting is probably going to be larger than the value found in the database searched by Google (the database doesn't seem to be right up to the moment, at least not all the time). So, you may have to search for "94" instead of "97", for example·--by trial and error.

    Second, the Google search only allows going back 100 postings, it seems. Can that limit be relaxed?
    Oops! I see that is 100 postings per result page; all postings are found/listed (on multiple pages)

    Then, if you were further·inclined to create a list of the actual URLs of the specific messages, (not just to the page of the thread containing the message, which is what Google search returns), it appears necessary to parse the html source for the Google search result (hit) list.

    PAR


    Post Edited (P-A-R) : 4/8/2007 4:54:12 AM GMT
  • Chris SavageChris Savage Parallax Engineering Posts: 14,406
    edited 2007-04-08 06:35
    PAR,

    There is no doubt that it won’t be easy to find certain posts in the words and phrases are common…But I find eliminating other information helps. With the current software there is no alternative. The built-in Search Engine simple isn’t fixable and this was our best interim solution. Take care.

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    Chris Savage
    Parallax Tech Support
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