Searches with multiple words don't return any results

[hoffie4]

I'm trying to improve the search results for my HTML5 Top Nav project. I've just learned about keywords and how to add them into topics (though I am still unclear if I should only add one keyword per topic, mark every used instance of the keyword, or just assign a topic to a keyword) and I have also created a search filter set so that users can indicate which concepts they want to search in.

But I have found that whenever a user does a search that is a phrase or that has multiple words, most often the search returns no results. For example, if I do a search for "print" or "printing" I will get ~28 results that are all of the topics containing the word "print." But if I do a search for "how to print" or "I cant print" I get zero results. Even if I make print the first term and search "printing problems" I will only get 1-3 results. I would have assumed that if the search can't find any results for the full search phrase, it would at least show results where individual words in the search show up. I even went through and added "print" as a keyword in all of the printing topics and still nothing unless I only do a one word search for "print."

Does anyone know what I can do to make the search better? Is there a way to make the search identify keywords within a search and prioritize results with those words? Am i just using keywords incorrectly?

[BedfordWriter]

IIRC, in version 12 Flare went from an implied "or" to an implied "and" between words in a search.

You might try enabling partial word searches. I can't find any notes for how to change back to an implied "or".
http://help.madcapsoftware.com/flare201 ... yntax1.htm

[hoffie4]

That seems to match the results that I am getting, but if that is the then I need to find some way to switch back to an implied "or" or have some sort of tag for keywords to be recognized in a search phrase that will automatically return related topics specific to that keyword. Otherwise the search is basically useless for users who search phrases because even though there are keywords in their search, it will never return anything unless a complete match of the entire search is found. I can understand this kind of result if I enclose a search in quotes, but if not there must be some way to specify that if there are no results for the entire phrase then redo the search to find individual terms (with emphasis on specified keywords).

Is there some way to perhaps add a custom search engine or custom search rules into Flare? If not, then I am kind of disappointed with Flare. The search is really good when using just a single term, but so far it is incredibly lacking when it comes to multi-word searches

[Dinnit]

If it's any help, we're adding Zoom search in to our output. I have the same issue - users type in full phrases and questions. Everyone expects a search function to work like Google
https://www.wrensoft.com/zoom/

[ccfisher76]

If you could share your success with using Zoom as your search engine, I'd love to hear more. We are migrating over to Flare from HelpAndManual (or thinking about it. At this point, I'm not loving Flare--even though we already bought the software). With HelpAndManual, Zoom is very easy to implement into the skin and output. Categories work, exact phrasing searches, preferred results, etc. So if I could have some assurances that using Zoom will work in Flare too, that would be very exciting for me indeed.

[Dinnit]

See this topic:
viewtopic.php?f=9&t=29747
for last post.
Basically we have not yet found a way of incorporating a third party search engine into Flare other than a redirect.