TinyForum: Search configuration

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pat
User
Posts: 215
Joined: 02-Mar-2006
# Posted on: 21-Feb-2010 00:54:02   

Hi,

every time I make a search in the forums it sorts by default Forum ascending Last Post date descending

Then quite often I see posts from 2003 near the top of the results frowning I would really like that the default is: Last Post date descending Forum ascending

Or that it is saved as a setting per user.

Thanks for considering it, Patrick

Otis avatar
Otis
LLBLGen Pro Team
Posts: 39614
Joined: 17-Aug-2003
# Posted on: 21-Feb-2010 10:48:28   

The sort on forum is first because it gives a grouping per forum and then per thread. This is in general better because the threads are grouped per forum anyway (a 'designer' thread isn't likely to match what you're looking for if you're looking for a runtime thing). So one would first typically select the forums in which you want to search, and then the sorting, and the default (first per forum then last post ) is then preferable.

We planned to do some maintenance work this year on the forum system but it's not something soon. So if you see threads from the stone age at the top, it's because they're in a forum which likely didn't have a lot of matching threads so you probably shouldn't have selected that forum in the list anyway wink . But I can imagine one would select all simply to not miss a thread which might help.

So I'd do: 1) first only pick the forums which would likely contain the thread you're looking for, then simply search and scroll through the results based on the last post date. This should already give you a short list.

If it doesn't contain the thread you're looking for, do: 2) use all forums and set the sorting you'd suggest.

I'll add a note to the log of changes to consider for the forums this year to look into storing search sorting.

Frans Bouma | Lead developer LLBLGen Pro
pat
User
Posts: 215
Joined: 02-Mar-2006
# Posted on: 23-Feb-2010 00:39:19   

Otis wrote:

1) first only pick the forums which would likely contain the thread you're looking for, then simply search and scroll through the results based on the last post date.

I never select a particular forum...Since I might miss a post which was in the wrong forum. So I need to change the sort order every time.

Anyway thanks for putting it onto the todo list.

All the best, Patrick