Still no search facility?

Cucumber King · Post by **Cucumber King** » Sat, 31. Dec 05, 07:54

You know what makes me angy?

In the search functions, where you can only search some certain words you can only search for MK3 or something like that, BUT NOT for Universe trader or Sector trader.

That really p*****s me off!

I mean who says MK3 instead of UNIVERSE TRADER OR SECTOR TRADER!

I had so many threads on this BUT I CANT FIND THEM!

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

markkram95 · Post by **markkram95** » Sat, 31. Dec 05, 07:57

What does BurnIt know? I don't understand what the problem is!
Is there a reasonable explanation for not "fixing" the search function?

I can only see a positive side to it surely!

It would benefit everybody.

I'm sure that 99% of people would like the option to search for answers.
Every time I come on this forum I want to search for something, but can't so I "HAVE" to submit a new post even though I know the answer has probably been answered before somewhere.......

markkram95 · Post by **markkram95** » Sat, 31. Dec 05, 08:00

mikesl wrote:In the mean time we are still capable of performing third party searches using engines like google.com

For example. if you want to search for "Noob question" in the X-universe section :

1. Go to google

2. Type in the search box "Site:forum2.egosoft.com/viewforum.php?f=2 Noob question" without the quotation marks. You should see the results coming up.

Not as good as the built in function of the php forum. But one must choose the lesser of the two weevils

Doesn't work! Typed exactly what you said and other words on the end and no luck!!!!! Test these things before suggesting please........

Besides, why should Google have to pick up the shortfalls of this forums functions? Isn't that a copout?

pjknibbs · Post by **pjknibbs** » Sat, 31. Dec 05, 08:17

The search function is not disabled because of some desire to annoy the community or otherwise cause them problems. It is disabled because enabling it would bring the server to its knees--a search requires the server to scan through ALL the posts on the database, which is a considerably more intensive operation than opening a thread and reading it. Until the server load reduces to a point where this extra load will NOT kill it stone dead, the search will remain disabled--sorry.

mikesl · Post by **mikesl** » Sat, 31. Dec 05, 08:25

Perhaps you didn't type in the correct format

Believe me I've done it more than 10 times.

just copy and paste my example line here into the search box

site:forum.egosoft.com announcement

note that there's no space between "site:" and forum.egosoft.com and there is a space between forum.egosoft.com and announcement.

Like I said, not as good as the built-in function, but it's nonetheless a choice.

mikesl · Post by **mikesl** » Sat, 31. Dec 05, 08:32

And without "http://" when using this function.

Google is not picking up shortfalls of php forums, this function was designed for search WITHIN a given site, no matter the target site has search functions or not, in order to narrow down the search radius.

Anyway, the results might not be as close as a built-in function of the target site. That why one must choose the lesser of the two....

Now I think I've made it clear enough....

Kaiser Kraft · Post by **Kaiser Kraft** » Sat, 31. Dec 05, 22:46

This got well and truly buried down two pages.

WolfHeart · Post by **WolfHeart** » Sat, 31. Dec 05, 23:04

Yes, it is HIGH TIME! The forums basically constitute 100% of the technical support for this game, and not being able to search for a specific problem that you know other people have had and posted about is ridiculous.

Deleted User · Post by **Deleted User** » Sat, 31. Dec 05, 23:06

If we all send a postal-order (remember those?)
for 50p to BurnIt! Corporation,
then Egosoft can afford more server kit.

Or perhaps Richard Branson can donate a
whole load of equipment to this just and noble cause

(voted Hell Yes! by the way - didn't everyone?)

Hob Anagerik · Post by **Hob Anagerik** » Sat, 31. Dec 05, 23:12

It has to be said that there are many, many different websites out there with forums. Why does this one have a problem with the search function?

blackfire83 · Post by **blackfire83** » Sat, 31. Dec 05, 23:17

People not to calm down and stop acting like Egosoft and the Forums owe them something. Yeah, it's annoying that the Search function doesn't work, but I understand that we need forum access first and foremost.

Why do millions of other forums have a working search function and this one does not? Perhaps because this is literally one of the busiest forums in the world, and the search function takes A LOT of processing power. Moreso than 200 people asking newbie questions every day.

I don't mind a respectful suggestion, or an intelligent debate, but this is neither. This is making demands based on an entitlement attitude. You are NOT entitled to a search feature on the forums. You didn't purchase it, so no one's got any grounds to make demands.

-blackfire83

Prosallus · Post by **Prosallus** » Sat, 31. Dec 05, 23:41

seriously. you're telling me that egosoft, a successful company, cannot afford a few new servers? outrageous.

Kaiser Kraft · Post by **Kaiser Kraft** » Sun, 1. Jan 06, 00:01

I made no demand I simply wish to know why? as you say other forums seem to cope! And the forum is so busy because no one has an easy method of tracking down the answer to a simple question which is a known issue or maybe you just wish to recap on something you had previously read.

I don’t want blood I don’t really care I am no newbie and I have completed the missions its just good to keep track of what others think and to confirm that the methods of play you have adopted are inline with others or maybe they have found a better approach that you may have over looked.

It should not be an issue and the forum is a service that Egosoft provide its not free you have made a contribution to it unless you have a pirate version. In which case you get little from here as an unregistered user why coz you did not pay!

I am the first to show my appreciation for their on going efforts! but they glean plenty of good stuff back from the users on here to so don’t think they do this out of pure kindness!!

And if they didn’t have this forum how much cash would they have refunded for returned stock? We pay an ISP to get access to these fixes!

I have played all the games and only joined the forum to download the UD and bonus pack for X2 which I had completed and created and empire in with out the aid of a forum. Just used it as a leach point!

I have only be on here because I was looking in for the 1.01 1.02 1.3 UD’s Did you read a complaint from me?

The point is simple WHY? Hardware? Search engine? Etc. Its not some strange black art anymore this is mainstream technology.

Matthew The Mage · Post by **Matthew The Mage** » Sun, 1. Jan 06, 00:33

I really dislike posting a new thread knowing full well it has need asked and answered atleast 10x over if not more in the last week.

Deleted User · Post by **Deleted User** » Sun, 1. Jan 06, 00:49

Server maintenance was carried out today,
but no 'Extra Search' function is imminent

BurnIt! :
http://forum.egosoft.com/viewtopic.php?t=117272

Perhaps the server 'search' load can be optimised (optimized?)
in other ways?

The Google 'site:' search DOES work to some extent, who's
server is that loading??

RRRoamer · Post by **RRRoamer** » Sun, 1. Jan 06, 01:32

I know a lot of other very active forums that have a very well throught out and functioning search feature. There is no excuse for it being broken on Egosofts forums.

nobloodyname · Post by **nobloodyname** » Sun, 1. Jan 06, 01:44

Everytime I post here I know it's on something that's been asked before and I haven't been able to turn up in the default topic lists on the 'search' engine. And everytime I know I would get fried for it on any other forum.

We need the functionality, we really do.

Deleted User · Post by **Deleted User** » Sun, 1. Jan 06, 02:29

RRRoamer wrote:...functioning search feature...

Shhhh, not too loud. If enuf people demand it, and then its enabled, then this forum will slide down from third place. "Someone" is milking that server stat for all its worth.

RRRoamer wrote: There is no excuse for it being broken on Egosofts forums...

Milking machines need some processing power.... Quiet!

Anywayssssss.... it ties in well with other Egosoft products not working to 100%.

BTW, I voted Yes.

esd · Post by **esd** » Sun, 1. Jan 06, 02:49

Merged into the existing thread on the subject, which is in Off Topic because it's not actually about X, is it? It's about the forums.

Anyway, your answer is here, from Page 2:

pjknibbs wrote:The search function is not disabled because of some desire to annoy the community or otherwise cause them problems. It is disabled because enabling it would bring the server to its knees--a search requires the server to scan through ALL the posts on the database, which is a considerably more intensive operation than opening a thread and reading it. Until the server load reduces to a point where this extra load will NOT kill it stone dead, the search will remain disabled--sorry.

Incidentally, the Egg came first. At some point in the evolution of a chicken, a non-chicken laid an egg and a chicken came out of it.

Post by **BurnIt!** » Sun, 1. Jan 06, 03:52

Righto - no harm in trying one more time...

the forum search has been temporarily re-enabled.

Please note that this search function has already been altered drastically to improve performance. I will quote from a post I made a year ago that explained the changes:

Aug 2004, BurnIt! wrote: I will now explain how our search operates.

Posts that are created will not be indexed immediately anymore but all posts that have been created/edited/deleted in a day are indexed together at night when the forum is not very busy. This means it can take up to 24 hours until your post can be found with the Search.

Existing limitations include a minimum search term length of 4 characters and a maximum of 19. In addition, there is a lengthy list of "stopwords", that is to say words that will not be included in the search because they are too common. If you are really curious, you can have a look at the list here.

Obviously the standard phpBB filters also apply, so BBCode tags, text in quotes, links, HTML tags, and so on will all be ignored. Additionally, a further filter exists which filters out words with 4 or more letters in a row that are the same. So "hmmmmm" and "spaaaaaam" would not be included in the search.

And there's more.

Messages in the Off-Topic forums are not indexed.

Threads whose title consists only of a single word and are not longer than 6 characters (the favourite is "Help", which of course doesn't say much about what is in the thread) will not be indexed either. Answers in these threads will be indexed, as long as their title doesn't also consist of just a single word.

Numbers won't be included in the search.

A new restriction is that only the first 300 words of a message will be indexed. Really long posts put a heavy load on the search function every time they are posted, edited or deleted.

Note that the 20000 occurences limiter mentioned in the original post is no longer active. By now far too many search terms exceed that limit and if the limit was increased the performance benefit would be negligible so I decided to turn it off for now.

Please remember that there is still the [url=http://forum.egosoft.com/search/index.html?template=default&style=default.css][b]Li[/b]nk[b]Li[/b]st[/url] feature specifically designed to address those search terms that are excluded from the regular search engine (3 character expressions like MK3, BPH, IRE, PAC...) or extremely common words like Argon, Khaak or Xenon.
It's a lot faster than the regular search because it is using static html pages that are not generated in real-time.
More info can be found here: http://forum.egosoft.com/viewtopic.php?p=690551#690551

That's it for now - as long as the server performance is acceptable the search will remain active - as soon as the website/forums come to a halt because of it, the search will be turned off again!

Still no search facility?

Is the Search function important for these forums?