Are there any plans to improve the search functionality?

MasterOne

The search function of Vanilla (2.1b1) seems to be quite basic, it only searches for text in discussions without including the discussion title or other options (like search in specific categories only, or limiting to search postings of a specific user).

• Is there some optional search magic to be entered as options into the search box, or can it really only do simple searches?

• Are there any plans to improve the search functionality?

I think the search function is very important for a forum, and I am quite used to all the search options available in other forum software like phpBB.

whu606

@MasterOne

Perhaps, if you searched 'Search' on Addons, you would find your answer...

MasterOne

@whu606 said:
Perhaps, if you searched 'Search' on Addons, you would find your answer...

I have searched in Addons, and I guess you mean SphinxSearch, but that one can not be used on a simple webhosting account as it requires a daemon.

Or should I have found something else?

whu606

@MasterOne

Can Sphinx lite not do what you need?

There has been a lot of discussion about the search facility on here. If Sphinx won't do it for you, then you may be stuck.

MasterOne

@whu606 said:
Can Sphinx lite not do what you need?
There has been a lot of discussion about the search facility on here. If Sphinx won't do it for you, then you may be stuck.

To be honest I don't really understand the differences between SphinxSearch and SphinxSearchLite. Both require searchd, making it impossible to use on a simple webhosting account. But well I'll have to revisit that issue later, till then the default search of Vanilla will have to do.

50sQuiff

SphinxSearch comes with a built-in Sphinx installer, search plugin and search widgets.

SphinxSearchLite is simply the search plugin component. It's for people who prefer to do the Sphinx installation themselves via the distro.

Kudos to mcuhq for his work. I sponsored the development of the Lite edition.

hgtonight

I know there are plans to make search better. That doesn't really help us now though.

What specifically do you need to do? You can extend the search controller through a plugin like anything else.

MasterOne

@hgtonight said:
What specifically do you need to do? You can extend the search controller through a plugin like anything else.

• Combination of entered search terms (AND/OR)
• Search in title, message body or both
• Search in all categories or specific ones
• Search in postings of specific users

Pretty much what people coming from phpBB and such are used to have.

hgtonight

Most of these options just add an extra SQL WHERE clause. As such, a plugin could add these. Pseudo code below.

public function SearchModel_AfterBuildSearchQuery_Handler($SearchModel) {
  $Search = $SearchModel->EventArguments['Search'];
  // Do what ever you want to modify the SQL based on the $Search terms
  if(preg_match('`.*user:(^ *)`', $Search, $Matches)) {
    $Username = $Matches[1];
    // find user id from username
    $SearchModel->SQL->Where('InsertUserID', $userID);
  }
}

MasterOne

@hgtonight

Pretty cool, but right now definitely over my head, I'm not ready to write my own plugins. In fact, I am actually stumbling my way through the mysteries of Vanilla to get my forum up and running as soon as possible, so I try to concentrate on the essentials right now. Either someone else comes up with such a nice plugin, or I'll have to revisit that issue sometime later.