ok, it's loads a lot quicker, but i really don't understand the 4 letter minimum rule. if i type, wax, ace, six, one, the, ect. I keep getting errors How would i look up "wild card wax" for example. Keep up the good work, i love you guys for haveing this site!

thanx!

Type in "wild card wax" and check "exact phrase". Results will be shown with posts matching only "wild card wax", instead of posts matching "wild" and posts matching "card" and posts matching "wax". Using exact phrase (which wasn't available on the old form) will get you nearer what you're looking for. The minimum is so there aren't any searches for "the" (as just one example) - because something like that would be in almost every post. Four characters seemed a reaonable limit. Can't have somebody trying to search for "it" now, can we?

It's fast and great!

Thanks,
landmark

Kudos for the search engine upgrades! Thanks for your efforts! Bob

The improvements are good. A couple of minor queries while we're here though.

The default search option is to search for "any" of the words. I have _never_ used this option. I have always gone for "all words" and, more recently, "exact phrase". Just wondered if anyone else found the same thing (no big deal).

The second point I wanted to raise is more interesting. Being of a mental sieve-like disposition I rarely remember the names of the forums I want to search in. Typically I only search in 2 or 3 forums. Because the forum names are creatively titled my poor brain can't cope - I really can't remember the names of the forums I use every day. There are a number of solutions to this:

1. I shouldn't be so lazy and I should jot the forum names down on a post-it as a reminder.
2. I was wondering whether it might be possible to provide alternative names in the search function. For example, "Cards" could cover the "Pick a Card, any Card" forum and perhaps the flourish forum. "Reviews" could cover the "Garbage" forums etc. etc. ie. the facility would enable searches in related forums without the need to fire off different searches for each one.

Just a thought that has come to mind a few times - no strong feelings about it myself. Given that you've obviously spent some time making the current excellent improvements you probably won't want to make further changes in this area just yet. (I'll have forgotten I posted this query in an hour or so any way )

Beetroot, since you search by exact phrase anyway, just change the search area to all forums. Then you don't have to remember where a post was. It is rare that the exact phrase you are looking for would be in more than 2 or 3 forums at the most.

Dave,

That's what I used to do, but the search system (quite rightly) now enforces us to be a bit more specific about our posts (i.e. you can't lazily choose All Forums without being specific in other areas). The reason why I hadn't mentioned my ideas before was because it was possible to blindly use All Forums which to my understanding is no longer the case.

I'm happy doing whatever as I had no access to magical information before the Magic Café came along.

Cheers,

Beetroot

Beetroot, if you type in your exact phrase just as you always do and choose that option, the only diffence is that you need to click on the 3 month criteria option. That's the only difference. To go back farther, at the bottom of your results page, just change the dates using the drop down boxes and search again. I think you'll find once you do this a few times, the engine is quite helpful.