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| By | Announcement - JCapper Message Board Search | |
| jeff 7/31/2012 9:20:40 PM | JCapper Message Board Search Function Something this board has lacked - and something I've been working on in my "spare" time (like I have any) is a Search function for this board. For those of you who may not know, the original JCapper Board was hacked - and that event persuaded me to take it down. In my spare time I wrote enough code to get this board up and running. My initial goals were to write a comprehensive security layer into it (so that it would be a lot more difficult for someone to hack than the original.) I also wanted you guys to be able to read posts, log in, and make posts. Longer term, I wanted you guys to be able to log in and search older posts too. Life has a way of laughing at us - and our plans. A couple of years ago, I realized that I really didn't have any free time. As a result, I focused on adding new features to the JCapper program - but pushed creating a search function for the JCapper Message Board off into the future. At one point I put the project up for bid on a site called elance.com - and paid several hundred dollars to a "programmer" who talked a good game - but who in the end couldn't produce a working prototype. Well today I am happy to make the following announcement: I have been working quietly and behind the scenes (as much as free time allows me to) and as of right now I have an actual working prototype Search function for the JCapper Message Board. It's only at about 80% right now... But I feel it's far enough along that I'm willing to post about it (and have linked to it at the top of the message board pages.) • Note: You need to be logged in to the board in order to see the search links and use them. (No log in/no search.) • Note: The Private Part of the Board is mostly enabled for search. (There are still a few things security-wise that I need to create before I'm willing to announce that the private part of the board is 100% searchable - but still invisible to search engines like Google and Bing. • Note: Even though it's fairly intuitive - I do plan on writing up some basic operating instructions for using it. That said, you should now see Search links whenver you are logged in. BASIC OPERATING INSTRUCTIONS: 1. Click the Search link. This will launch the search page. 2. Select your SEARCH CRITERIA. You have the following options: a. FORUM NAME - Select the specific forum that you want to search. Alternately, select ALL. b. AUTHOR - Restrict searched for posts by author. If you want to search for my posts, key jeff or JEFF into the box. (It's not case sensitive.) If you leave the author box blank, the algorithm driving the search will pull up posts made by all authors. c. KEYWORDS 1, 2, and 3 - Define the parameters of your search by typing in specific keywords. Use just one or use all three. For example, if you want to search the board for PRESET FILTER CODES, you could key the entire phrase into one of the keyword boxes, or alternately key each word separately into each of the three boxes. d. KEYWORD JOIN - Your options here are "OR" and "AND." Note: For best results... at least until the project is 100% finished use AND. When finished, the option selected will control the way your keywords are handled by the search algorithm. If you select "OR" the algorithm will look for posts (and possibly thread titles) that contain a match for any of your keywords. If you use "AND" the algorithm will require that ALL of your keywords be contained in a post before that post is returned as a match. e. SEARCH TYPE - Your options here are "THREAD TITLES AND MESSAGE TEXT," "THREAD TITLES ONLY," and "MESSAGE TEXT ONLY." When you select THREAD TITLES AND MESSAGE TEXT, the algorithm will apply all of your chosen parameters to both thread titles and message text found in posts - and it will return matches accordingly. If you select MESSAGE TEXT ONLY, the algorithm will do the same - but look at text found in posts only (without looking at text found in thread titles) as it does its thing. f. DATE RANGE - The option selected here determines how far back in time the algorithm will go when looking for matches. 3. After selecting your search parameters, click the NEXT link. This will bring up the next page where the algorithm will search the JCapper message board database for posts and threads matching your search criteria. When the entire database has been searched, the algorithm will display links to individual threads that contain matches for what you searched for. 4. If one of the links looks like it's what you want - click on it - and you will navigate to that thread. If none of the links are what you are looking for, hit the BACK button and retry your search. About the search database... I didn't want the search engine to be capable of slowing down the message board. I have the search algorithm programmed to search through a backup copy of the JCapper message board database - not the live database itself. So if 80 of you decide all at once to do searches - and overload the server's ability to handle search requests... hey it could happen. (The server logs tell me that 73 of you logged into the JCapper message board at some point yesterday.) - If that should happen, it's the search page (and the search page only) that should slow to a crawl. The JCapper message board itself should still be fine. (If this turns out not to be the case I'll take the search links down until such time as I get it straightened out.) Because the search algorithm searches a backup copy of the database (and not the live database) if you make a post and then immediately search for it - the search algorithm isn't going to find it. However, the search algorithm is VERY capabable of finding posts and thread titles containing matches for your search criteria that happen to exist in the backup database. So every few days as I decide to create a new backup of message board's database - that's when relatively new posts will become visible to the search algorithm. I hope I explained most of that in a way that makes sense. Enjoy, -jp . ~Edited by: jeff on: 7/31/2012 at: 9:20:40 PM~
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| Charlie James 8/1/2012 5:04:02 PM | Just wanted to say thanks for doing this. Muchas Gracias Muchacho
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| JimG 8/2/2012 4:36:22 PM | Beats the prior method of searching here by a ton. Thanks Jeff. Jim
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| mikejlb 8/24/2012 1:08:40 PM | I just noticed the search feature. Great idea, Jeff! I do miss this feature and appreciate your effort to make the search function.
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