Searching the Forum

[iand]

I am having a lot of problems searching the forum because many of the terms I want to search for are apparently too common, for example: table. The search fails for that reason. This is very irritating as they are common for the precise reason that people want to search for them! This is certainly reducing the value I get out of the forum and means that I may be posting on topics which have already been answered. Has anyone found a way round this? Perhaps I have missed something really obvious. I tried search just by Topic Subject but had the same problem with "common" words like table. I could understand that "and","the" etc. are common words but "table" !

Is there any chance Madcap could update the Forum Search mechanism? Wishful thinking, perhaps! I tried contacting the Forum administrator but never got a response. In all other respects this Forum works really well.

Thanks

Ian

[jmenning]

For this very reason, I typically use Google's advanced search to search the forum.

http://www.google.com/advanced_search?hl=en

In the "Search within a site or domain" field, type 'forums.madcapsoftware.com' to search only this site.

I would love to be able to use the built-in forum search, but when it excludes words like index, table, link, and stylesheet, it's basically useless.

[iand]

Great tip, thanks for that

[NorthEast]

I made (hacked together) a forums search plugin for FireFox (using Google).
It made it for myself really, but if it's of use to anyone...
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/37225161/MadCap ... search.xml

Edit: Added instructions.

To install:
- Right-click the link and save the XML file.
- Put the XML file in the folder Program Files\Mozilla Firefox\searchplugins
- Restart Firefox.

To use the search:
- Click on the icon to the left of the search box (in the top right), and select MadCap forums from the menu

[GregStenhouse]

Thanks so much for that Dave, very very handy

[jmenning]

Slick! Thank you

[LTinker68]

You need to save the XML file and put in the folder Program Files\Mozilla Firefox\searchplugins

Then what? I don't use many add-ons or plug-ins in Firefox, so I'm not sure how to use it.

[jmenning]

Once you've copied the xml file to that folder, close and restart Firefox.

In the search box, which is usually in the upper right corner of the browser window, you can select a search engine. Mine defaults to Google.

There's a little down-arrow button to the right of the search engine logo (left of the search field itself). Click the arrow for a list of available search engines. Select Madcap forums.

Type in your search criteria in the field, and then press Enter to start the search. Voila!

[LTinker68]

Heh. Cool.

Thanks.

[ccardimon]

Once you've copied the xml file to that folder, close and restart Firefox.

In the search box, which is usually in the upper right corner of the browser window, you can select a search engine. Mine defaults to Google.

There's a little down-arrow button to the right of the search engine logo (left of the search field itself). Click the arrow for a list of available search engines. Select Madcap forums.

Type in your search criteria in the field, and then press Enter to start the search. Voila!

VERY cool. Kudos to you.

[DoCo]

Hello there,

For IE users, you can use this form :
http://www.microsoft.com/windows/ie/sea ... once2.aspx
But pay attention to run the TEST test from the Advanced search.
Moreover, if you are only interested in 'Microsoft HTML Help' threads and want the results to be displayed by Topic and not by Post, you can specified and saved these criteria in your customized search engine.

A last tip, to avoid the term of interest from being ignored (i.e. table, style...), simply add an * at the end of it (table*, style*).

DoCo

[ccardimon]

Type in your search criteria in the field, and then press Enter to start the search. Voila!

Got it. Thanks!

[shwetae]

Thanks Dave..That's a very handy and useful trick

[NorthEast]

I've updated the forums search plugin for newer versions of Firefox (to use opensearch).

You can find it here:
http://forums.madcapsoftware.com/viewto ... 682#p85682