New (Repositioned) Search Function

[Gary Lewis]

I've moved the Freefind site search from the bottom to the top of every page - as shown below.  It currently isn't easy to see as it is apparently partially blocked by the menu bar and the font is very small.  But, I think I could sort those issues out if we like the function.

So, please play with it.  Turns out to be very useful as it only searches only our website, and it finds posts in the forum as well as pages in the documentation.  Plus, it has a site map and other features I might be able to turn on if we like it.

Having said that, our site is getting big enough that it may not be free to do the whole site.  So, I need feedback on what you think of the function.  If we like it then I can address both the aesthetics, maybe make it say "search the Garagemahal", as well as the size/cost.

[Ford F834]

Gary, I know I am on a mobile device and the forum is not mobile friendly... but...

I can’t use the search bar. It is obscured by the header. If I scroll down I can pull it into view but I cannot click into the field to use it.

[Gary Lewis]

Have you tried clicking on the phrase "Search the Garagemahal"?

[ctubutis]

Gary, I don't know how well any of them are working...

I used a search term of "implied mileage sensor" in all 3 of the search fields:

- The one at the top that's mostly hidden by the header

- The one "in the middle of the page" that's below the bold text starting with "This forum is dedicated to..." and is just above the forum

- The one at the very bottom of the page, looks like Google Custom Search



Try that term in all 3 of the search boxes and look at the results for yourself and see whatchya think....

[Ford F834]

That is working! I did not realize that was a link, I was expecting a field that I could type in

[Gary Lewis]

Jonathan - Glad it is working.  Please let me know what you think of it and its options.

Chris - I have tried it with these results.  And my searches were without the quotes.

Search The Garagemahal: This search covers both the whole website as well as the forum.  And I didn't find anything with all three words.  However, that's possible since today's indexing was not complete when it ran out of storage space at 2044 pages.  So it is possible that the page on 3D printing, found below,
hadn't been indexed.  And this thread wasn't in existence when the the indexing was done so it wasn't found.

Middle: This search is a Nabble search and is, therefore, only on the forum itself.  And it found both the 3D thread as well as this one.

Google Custom: This only searches the website, not the forum.  And, it didn't find the three words.

I've sent a note to the FreeFind folks who do the search function that's at the top of each page to see what it will take to get full indexing of the site and the forum.  And, to work out some of the details on placement, text size, etc.  But first we have to decide if we like it.

[Gary Lewis]

The FreeFind folks have given me new HTML for the search function, which I've implemented.  Take a test drive of it and see what you think.

[Gary Lewis]

Time for an update on the search function.  First, I've not gotten any feedback on it, so I'm guessing you haven't tried it.  Please do and let me know how you like it.  And, let me know what nuisance results you get.

I ask that because I've been working with the Freefind folks to get it to work correctly.  Initially it wasn't finding everything and they had to increase the size of our storage to handle something like 2400 pages so it could index (search) the whole site.  Once we had it indexing the whole site we realized that it was finding things we don't care about, including the three possible views, meaning classic, threaded, and list.  Who wants to see three different views of the same results in a search?  So we cut out threaded and list views.

Similarly it was finding other odd things, like the pages that show all of the threads each of us have commented on.  No!  I just want to see the actual post that has the term for which I'm searching!!!

The last index had gotten it down to 1782 pages from ~2400, so we are making progress.  But, I'd really like to know what you find and how it is working for you as we still have tuning to do.

[Gary Lewis]

And, after a bit more tuning the pages indexed are down from 1782 to 1284.  And, the search results are now more concise w/o the pages for people's profiles and other unnecessary returns.

But, I'd like to hear (see?) from y'all on this.  If I go too far it won't find what you are looking for, so there's a balance.  Please let me know if it is working for you.

[Ford F834]

Gary I checked to see that I could use the search bar, and I saw that it was working (in that it produced a list of results) but you are right. I have not “used” it for practical searching. I will put it to use over my next couple of days off.

[Gary Lewis]

Thanks.

You might check to see that the search function can find obscure things but doesn't return things you don't think it should.  We probably still have tuning to do that will exclude the things we don't want to see, so I need input on that.

And don't forget that placing quotes around things in theory forces it to find exactly that and nothing else.  But w/o the quotes it'll find the words in the search string anywhere in the post/page.  So you can try the search in differing ways to see how it responds.