• tonialoise
    Jan 29 9:09 AM 2009
    Reply
    I'm finding it strange that there is not much search ablility on this site. It first started bothering me on contests, I've been wanting to look up old ones but besides browsing hundreds of categories I could not find the specific one I wanted, especially if I didn't remember who ran it. Open contests seems to be the only thing that has some search capability, which is nice but almost useless since usually there's only about two pages worth of contests open at a time, not that hard to browse through.

    Then when I came to the forums I realized there was no search here either and wondered why. For example to see if anyone else left a suggestion about searching I would have to browse through 305 topics instead of typing in a word in a bar.

    It's bugged me also that I couldn't search my own stories for like who had commented on what. Often I'd like to enter something in a contest, I might have multiple things that would work, but I know the host had commented on some and then I have to go through each story to find out. I'm sure that is a pain for those that have multiple pages of comments.

    It's nice that we have a simple search for titles but a lot of times that just is not enough. Maybe if there was an "advanced search" page or something.


  • Barbara
    January 29, 2009 ↑
    Reply
    There was a larger search at one time, but I do believe that it tended to slow the site somewhat and wasn't very reliable.

    I'll IM this link to Kevin and maybe he'll address it in more detail.

    Although, I can give you a small hint for searching comments.(I use PC, so I'm not sure if this works for Mac, etc, or even other than IE).... Click on the page that shows all the comments made to you. Then, hit the Control + F keys at the same time. A 'Find Box' should pop up. Type in the name of the person that left the comment, or the title of the story, or some other identifying feature. Then, hit enter. It will take you to the spot. If it's not right, then click 'next', and it takes you to th next spot. You would have to do this for each page, but since the comment area usually carries 30 comments per page, it narrows it down. This is also great for finding certain parts on any page, like specific topics in the contest area, or names on a forum topic.

  • tonialoise
    January 29, 2009 ↑
    Reply
    Thanks, yeah I can see how it might slow down the site. It's a fine line between speed and content isn't it?

    Yep, I love the search function in Firefox, don't even have to use Ctrl-F if it's enabled. I do use it for searching comments but was kind of hoping for something that could search all of them at once. I'm quite lazy

    Anyway it's just a suggestion and might hopefully improve an already great site. I do appreciate your passing it on and prompt response.

  • Kylia Skydancer
    February 21, 2009 ↑
    Reply
    I use the nice little search box in the right hand colum near the bottom quite a bit.
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