Forum User Search

[skippymcnapper]

I think there's a glitch in the Search function. When I search By User in the Forum search, it always returns: Did you forget to put something to search for?

I tested it by searching for my own name (since I know I've posted), but it still said the same thing. It autofills an asterisk in that box and I tried searching with and without that.

[Administrator]

That's not a bug.

If you want to see all posts by a member, there is a link on their profile page called 'Show Posts' which will accomplish that. Its on the left.

To use the search feature you have to search for something :-)

[swogden]

I suspect the Search function looks at words in the body of the thread and perhaps the title of the thread.

If a person's name was in the body of the thread, it would probably come up.

I haven't been all that successful in using the search function.  Suspect that it works within the section of the forum that you are in, but not sure that it searches the entire forum if you are in the top level of the forum (Discussion Boards).

[skippymcnapper]

That's not a bug.

If you want to see all posts by a member, there is a link on their profile page called 'Show Posts' which will accomplish that. Its on the left.

To use the search feature you have to search for something :-)

But why is there a box to search for a member then if you can't use it? If I wanted to find a post by USER123, but I couldn't remember the topic name, how can I find the posts by that person? Do I have to go through all the topics until I find one USER123 posted in so I could click their profile link?

[swogden]

Took me a bit to figure this out, but your question made me think.

There is a Buddy List on your Forum Profile (edit Profit -- last line).
If you enter the username  of the person you want to find in your Buddy List, you can then go to his profile and check out his posts.

Just did this using your name and it works.  Once you add someone to the Buddy List, it's there until you remove it.

[swogden]

And the box on the search function that allows you to add a user name, allows you to limit the responses for the search word(s) to just the posts by that user. 
Purpose is to reduce the number of responses you get.

Not sure what you would get if you searched for "the" and the user name you were looking for whether you would get most of the posts by that user.

This is what you get:
Your search query contained too trivial words. Please try again with a different query.

So you need something of substance to produce the search.

[swogden]

Also tried search using "Forum User" and your username and came up with just the opening post of this thread.

When I tried "Forum" and your username, it came up with 5 pages of posts, so being able to refine the search -- even for a given username is very important.

[Administrator]

But why is there a box to search for a member then if you can't use it? If I wanted to find a post by USER123, but I couldn't remember the topic name, how can I find the posts by that person? Do I have to go through all the topics until I find one USER123 posted in so I could click their profile link?

If you remember the subject of USER123's topic, you can enter some keywords from it in the search field, and then put their username into the username field.  That way you would get all topics matching your keyword(s), which were composed by USER123.  Leaving the username field as "*" will match any member's posts.

If you don't remember any particulars about the topic, and only know the member name, you will have to use the "Show Posts" functionality I mentioned and look through them all.  That would be the case even if the search form was working the way you want it to.

Also tried search using "Forum User" and your username and came up with just the opening post of this thread.

When I tried "Forum" and your username, it came up with 5 pages of posts, so being able to refine the search -- even for a given username is very important.

Exactly

[skippymcnapper]

ah, I gotcha now Admin, AND I was able to find what I was looking for!

swogden, thanks for all the legwork and explanations!

[Administrator]

ah, I gotcha now Admin, AND I was able to find what I was looking for!

swogden, thanks for all the legwork and explanations!

I'm glad!
Another trick, if all else fails:
search on google for:   site:fusioncash.net/forum.php someusername somekeyword someotherkeyword
That will search google's index of our forums (which has most of the posts) and generally speaking google is better at matching than our forum's builtin search.