Improve Forum Search Function: "batch convert" ignored

[XnSoldier]

I really couldn't search for "batch", "convert" nor "Batch convert" ! seriously? wow. lol.

[cday]

I really couldn't search for "batch", "convert" nor "Batch convert" ! seriously? wow. lol.

Was that using the 'Search' option or the 'Advanced search' option, which is Google-powered?

If using Search, it could be worth trying again using Advanced search, failing that I have often obtained good results with a simple online (Google) search.

You might also consider asking the question on the phpBB Support forums and posting a link to the thread here!

[XnSoldier]

You could have quickly tested it

The search function above the posts does this.
Advanced Search offers two options: Google Search and Search Query with more options shown.
Google doesn't have such flaws.

So yes: normal search and the Search Query in Advanced search, NOT google search is affected.

[cday]

You could have quickly tested it

If you'd care to ask about the unexpected limitation of the basic search option on the phpBB forum, it would be interesting to know their response...

[XnSoldier]

If you'd care to ask about the unexpected limitation of the basic search option on the phpBB forum, it would be interesting to know their response...

I am not running the BB Forum

[cday]

But nothing to stop you posting the question...

[XnSoldier]

So have you? Who stopped you?

[cday]

So have you? Who stopped you?

I am registered with the phpBB forum, and by chance posted only my second ever issue a few days ago, to obtain a piece of information that had long interested me as a moderator on two boards, but I have provided some support relating to the issue you raised that may or may not have been helpful, and am not proposing to raise the search issue you raised, interesting as their response might be, as we have satisfactory alternative ways of searching...

[XnSoldier]

- The alternative option is not obvious and hidden behind an icon which assumes it is "settings".
- maybe replace the function and make it google instead
- same argument could tell anyone with bugs in XnView to just go with "an alternative".

I gave my experience and opinion. If it is fixable, replacable, improvable, I don't know.

But with no critics, no improvements

[cday]

The Google search option was added by XnTriq some years ago, I am not sure what the situation was before, only that the unsatisfactory situation you reported occurred frequently.

But as you raised the issue, and have been motivated to press for 'something to be done' [ ], you would I think be the best person to raise it with phpBB and well placed to argue the case for change, and then hopefully report back on this thread! But as that forum is managed by phpBB support staff and, although anyone can register, it can be assumed to be mainly accessed by admins and moderators, it would probably be best to be respectful.

[XnSoldier]

First person to contact is the one implementing it. They know the product better. It could just be a configuration problem. Also they might listen to customers and not users. Again, how should I know? And I am not registered with them in any way. I get your point that they might be useless and xnView can't do anything about it. But I stand my ground to have raised the issue here first.

And it is a matter of priorities for me.

[cday]

You have raised the issue here first, and been advised of a workaround if you weren't already aware of it. But although you may be right that an issue raised by a phpBB customer might possibly be considered more carefully than one raised by a forum user, I am sure that despite the limitations of the search function phpBB as a widely-used forum platform is a successful business with a large number of customers. And for Pierre, as the sole developer of all xnview software who already has a high workload, I think raising it would be a low priority.

But more positively, writing as someone who is probably more likely than most people to raise issues, if as I suspect the issue hasn't in fact been raised very often, and may not have been raised recently, the chance of phpBB deciding that it is time to improve the search function might be higher than you think. It really wouldn't take long to register, but it is up to you whether it would be worth your time.

I can relate one positive experience of mine: when I wanted to contact my local public library system about an issue, I found that the home page only provided contact using a web form. I have only ever used web mail and don't have an email client installed, and am not sure whether contact forms always function reliably without one. Even if they do now, they usually require unneeded mandatory field to be completed, and rarely provide me with a copy of my message. On the day in question I contacted the library system, using the form or possibly the email address if it was visible, and was very pleasantly surprised to receive a response later the same morning informing me the the home page had been updated to include a contact email address!

[user0]

after 1min googling...

phpBB advises to:
1. set COMMON WORD THRESHOLD from default 5 to 0 and
2. rebuild indexes

also it is worth reading about search engines speed (phpBB Native Fulltext, mySQL Fulltext, SphinxSearch). I have no idea which one is used on this forum.

[XnTriq]

There's prolly no one who did more searching on this forum than me – hence my own frustration with phpBB's built-in search function

Like a user notices in THAT MESSAGE, there is a new “feature” of the Search extremely annoying,
I also suffered it several times.

Hopefully Pierre will have time to take care of this after the weekend.

Maybe you could make a few adjustments to the common word threshold?

Entering a very rare keyword returns the expected result (1 hit):

• phpBB built-in search
• Google search (Firefox plug-in)

As mentioned by cday, phpBB's built-in search leaves much to be desired.

Here you can define what search backend will be used for indexing posts and performing searches. You can set various options that can influence how much processing these actions require. Some of these settings are the same for all search engine backends.

[…]

Search backend
phpBB allows you to choose the backend that is used for searching text in post contents. By default the search will use phpBB’s own fulltext search.

• Sphinx Fulltext
• MySQL Fulltext
• phpBB Native Fulltext
• PostgreSQL Fulltext

One of the big differences for me is:

Sphinx is the fastest but it doesnt work on Shared Hosts.

phpBB Native is maybe the one that will give better search results BUT if you've let say a large board, let say 300Mb of posts table can create a 600mb of search table. (It will depend the configuration on ACP too) But with this one I can search for words with 3, 2 and even 1 letter.

MySQL Fulltext just create an index at database so it go to 2mb maximum compared to the 600mb of phpBB native lol, but the downside is that it can be slower at give the results, but the real bad thing at least for me is that it is limited to words with 4 letters at minimum. I wanted to be able to search too words with 3 letters as “men” and even 2 letters (in my case), its crucial to find information on my board.
This MySQL limitation I guess could be fixed on dedicate server, but on share hosts you cant change the 4 letters limitation .

About PostgreSQL this is if I used that kind of sql but I use MySQL instead, so I never new about this neither how it works.

We use phpBB Native Fulltext (default). Common word threshold is set to 5%. Terms like “nconvert” and “xnview” fall within the threshold.

Words which are contained in a greater percentage of all posts will be regarded as common. Common words are ignored in search queries. Set to zero to disable. Only takes effect if there are more than 100 posts. If you want words that are currently regarded as common to be reconsidered you have to recreate the index.

My OpenSearch plug-in was purged whenever the forum was updated to the newest version of phpBB, …

In addition to the search function that comes with phpBB, the forum can now be searched with Google's integrated Custom Search Engine.

… which is one of the reasons why we decided to install the Google SiteSearch extension:

Adds a Google Search box to your Forum. The responsive style uses the default “Advanced Search” Icon to access the Advanced Search where the Google Search is also available. The Admin can choose whether the search appears in the Header, Navbar or on the Index underneath Breadcrumbs (which also adds the default search). The Extension is supplied with a “search the whole web” Google Search Engine ID, which can be replaced with your own custom ID if you wish. The results are shown in a Forum page.

The built-in search isn't useless, IMO. You can Search for author and Search in forums.

It's that annoying common word threshold limitation again

The following words in your search query were ignored because they are too common words: settings.
You must specify at least one word to search for. Each word must consist of at least 3 characters and must not contain more than 14 characters excluding wildcards.

Searched query: settings registry ini
ignored: settings

This is why we decided to install the Google site search extension for phpBB.
It should give you the same or similar results as entering site:newsgroup.xnview.com settings registry ini into Google directly.

TL;DR: The reason why I was (and still am) reluctant to change the settings for “common word threshold” is that I have no idea how much storage space is available on the server. I'll ask Pierre again, but please bear with me – 'tis the season and there have been server issues recently.

[XnTriq]

Pierre took care of it today
The common word threshold is now set to 0%.

search.php?keywords=convert
search.php?keywords=png