"Keywords not specific enough"

[SassySnivy]

This is really annoying. Like, REALLY annoying! D: Any time I try to just search IN A MERE THREAD, I get this if my keywords "aren't specific enough." I can assure you in this case, "45% Hue" IS specific enough. Any way to fix this?


http://i.imgur.com/66FextD.png


Edit: I also can't search for a GROUP of keywords, they are all separate and separated. I tried to search for: ", 45% Hue Hatch" as that's MOAR SPECIFIC PL0X, but this is what happens:


http://i.imgur.com/g6AG8DA.png

[Pokemon Trainer Sarah]

Well the first issue is you can't search for words that are 3 characters or less. So it's taking hue and 45% separately, and therefore ignores it completely. The 3 character limit seemed like something I could change, but I looked it up and apparently it needs to be changed on the server, so there isn't much we can do about it right now...


The minimum and maximum length of words to be indexed is defined by the ft_min_word_len and ft_max_word_len system variables (available as of MySQL 4.0.0). See Section 5.3.3, “Server System Variables”. The default minimum value is four characters. The default maximum depends on your version of MySQL. If you change either value, you must rebuild your FULLTEXT indexes. For example, if you want three-character words to be searchable, you need to edit my.cnf (or my.ini on Windows systems) and set the ft_min_word_len variable by putting the following lines in an option file:

[mysqld]
ft_min_word_len=3

Then restart the server and rebuild your FULLTEXT indexes. Also note particularly the remarks regarding myisamchk in the instructions following this list.

I agree with you the group of keywords thing is SO ANNOYING. I've done some research on it and the current settings should allow you to use quotes to search for strings of words. I've had a bunch of issues with it but I just tried it and it seems to work now as long as all words are over 3 charcaters?

For example, in the Prism adoption thread, searching for main post gives 3 results: two posts that have the words main and post separately and one with main post in sequence. While searching for "main post" only brings up the post that has main post in sequence.

It still doesn't like "45% Hue", I assume because they are each under 3 letters and the % sign is a bit dicey as well.

Things it doesn't like:
45%
Hue
45% Hue
"45%"
"45 Hue"
"45% Hue"
"210%"
"210*%*"
Blue 45%


Things it likes (if that somehow helps):
Blue 210%
"Blue 210%"
^ Presumably because they are both over 3 characters but I don't know why "210%" or 210% on its own doesn't work... I'm not sure if the % counts as a character or whatever...

Yeah I don't really know how it works exactly but they're not really settings I can change, and from searching it seems vbulletin has always had a crappy search system. :( Sorry! Speed-X

[SassySnivy]

No problem, I'm glad I'm not the only one to notice. x] I figure that it'll be fixable at some point in time. :o thanks for answering me!

Edit: haven't fully read this yet, but in my few minutes of searching I found a lot of people talking about Sphinx, a search plugin or something for vbulletin, that might be worth a read. I've yet to read it myself, but I will do that. Just want to put this out there!
https://marketplace.digitalpoint.com/sphinx-search-for-vbulletin-4.870/item

Edit 2: damn. Nevermind, it costs moneh

Edit 3: alternate to the search feature here: you can type the following into Google:
"Keywords Go Here site:pokemoncrossroads.com"

Its definitely not perfect but its better xD

'nother interesting article:
https://www.vbulletin.org/forum/showthread.php?t=253432

[Pokemon Trainer Sarah]

Yeah I prefer using google, too. xD You'd think after all this time, they'd have a proper search function on vbulletin!

I saw that article, but I couldn't get this part to work so I dunno...

Search multiple words use Boolean operators such as:
- AND (ex. ajax AND instant)
- OR (ex. ajax OR instant)
- NOT (ex. ajax NOT instant) or use the minus sign (-) (ex. ajax -instant)