How Best to Search This Forum?

[CGP]

Can someone post or add to the FAQ how to search this forum? When I search, I always get either no results or 100 pages of irrelevant results. In particular, how can one search for a particular exact phrase? how can one search for *all* of several terms [AND]? how can one search for *any* of several terms [OR]? how can one *exclude* terms from a search [NOT]? how can one search only in topic titles and not search in reply posts?

I see the very brief and confusing explanation of AND, OR, and NOT on the page which appears after clicking on the Search link. And the the radio buttons labeled "Search post title and message text", "Search message text only", and "Search post title only". But none of that works!

Unless I am missing something.

For example, try to search for Tahrpup AND USB in post titles only and click on the radio button labeled "Search for all terms". And the search result includes many post titles that include ONLY USB, not Tahrpup!

It seems that the forum searching software simply does not work. Is that correct? Or am I missing something? If I am missing something, then also the FAQ is missing something.

[mostly_lurking]

I posted this in your other thread before I saw this one:

I wish someone would explain in the Help section how to search for a particular phrase, how to search for all of several terms [AND], how to search for any of several terms [OR], etc.

You can enter it like this:

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touchpad AND settings AND persist

That should turn up any threads that contain a post with all of these words; it doesn't seem to include topics that contain all terms, but not in the same post. (The above example brought up your thread as well as an older one about a similar issue.) This seems to be similar to the "search for all terms" setting. The OR option is pretty useless, since listing all posts that contain only some of the search terms is the default mode anyway. Searching for a phrase doesn't seem to be possible. The results can be displayed as either threads or posts; which one is better depends on what you are trying to find - a topic or a specific post.

The forum search really doesn't work too well in many cases. (And it often fails to find older threads.) If you can't get a good result with it, use Google instead:

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your search terms site:murga-linux.com

Or you can use the Wellminded Puppylinux search, which uses Google and searches the forum and some other Puppy sites.

For example, try to search for Tahrpup AND USB in post titles only and click on the radio button labeled "Search for all terms". And the search result includes many post titles that include ONLY USB, not Tahrpup!

"Search post title" appears to apply to the titles of posts, not threads, so it shows any topic that contains a post with these terms in its title - a problem with this is that many posts have no title. There doesn't seem to be an option to search for thread titles.

[rufwoof]

I tend to use google ... enter something like search words with the normal + or - operators to include or exclude specific words, or several words within quotes ... and add to that site:murga-linux.com to restrict the search to a particular web site ... maybe something like

CGP site:murga-linux.com

or

+Tahrpup +USB site:murga-linux.com

[CGP]

Great. I had no idea that I could specify a website, as in 'site:murga-linux.com' in a google search.

I may be wrong, but to be precise, Google's advanced search language does not seem to include the + operator; only the - operator. If you type into google 'tahrpup usb site:murga-linux.com' (without the single quotes), you get some good results. But if you type in '+tahrpup +usb site:murga-linux.com' (without the single quotes), you get the statement 'No results found for +tahrpup +usb site:murga-linux.com' (without the single quotes); you also get some good results. Anyway, it seems that + is not part of the google advanced search language, but still works.

And mostly_lurking, I will try the Wellminded Puppylinux Search next time. Thanks.

[bigpup]

I use this search.
http://puppylinux.us/psearch.html

As you can see, it will let you search different locations by using the drop-down selections.

This forum is the second location to select to search.

The results are by Google.

If I want a specific Puppy search I search this forum.
If I am looking for a general Linux search or general Google search, I use WWW.

[musher0]

Hi CGP.

For older posts, there is this directory of discussion threads prepared by
bruceb: http://www.smokey01.com/bruceb/pets_n_stuff.html

There's a wealth of Puppy material in there, close to 8,000 links, starting
from 2005 -- until maybe 3-4 years ago? Someone please correct me, I'm
not sure when Bruce B. stopped updating it.

Smokey01 suggests that we download this directory, so we can search it
offline.

IHTH.

[CGP]

Thanks, musher0. I did download it.

To all who replied: I had no idea there were so many ways to search the forum and other puppy-related sites. And I've been using the forum off and on for 9 years. Thanks.

It would be great for someone to disable the 'Search' function that appears at the forum start page, because it simply does not work. And then change that 'Search' link to point to a page with explanations of the other ways of searching the forum posted here. I suggest this because the forum's current terrible 'Search' function must cause many users to waste a lot of time while discovering that it does not work. Also, to have such a useless 'Search' function reflects badly on Puppy Linux itself as an operating system.

Thanks to all.