Search the forums

I agree that the search facility needs to improve in the future. However, this is an ASP-based site, so it won't be migrating to a PHP-based forum any time soon.

Let me get this straight. You want us to replace the entire forum software, just to fix up the search feature?

I'm fairly certain that changing to phpbb would actually be a downgrade for the site.

I would like for the search function to be more powerful, though. For example, I would love if it could search for threads containing posts by specific users (for example, only posts where Avatar God and boolean posted, containing the word "Roo-town").

Oh, asp, my bad.

No, there are several features that you "need" to implement on this forum.
- An advanced search function is one.
- To be able to subscribe to all topics you want.
- Better profile page where you can read about current projects etc. As well as a link to recent posts (like a fast search for all posts the user has made).
- To be able to click a link next to every topic to automaticly go to the last unread post in the thread as well as a link to the last post made in the topic.
- Get a "dot" before every topic you have posted in.

My intention was not to flame you, just to suggest a forum (punbb) which is easy to implement and proven to be good. Since I don't use ASP I don't know of any good forums in the language.

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Original post by Posselosse - To be able to subscribe to all topics you want.

What do you mean?

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Original post by Posselosse - Better profile page where you can read about current projects etc.

They don't keep track of people's current projects.

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Original post by Posselosse As well as a link to recent posts (like a fast search for all posts the user has made).

They have a list of recent posts on the profile page.

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Original post by Posselosse - To be able to click a link next to every topic to automaticly go to the last unread post in the thread as well as a link to the last post made in the topic. - Get a "dot" before every topic you have posted in.

I really don't think either of these are necessary. The first one can just be done by clicking on the link to the last page and hitting the "End" key. The second one can be done pretty easily by using the Recent Posts section of your profile page.

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Original post by Posselosse My intention was not to flame you, just to suggest a forum (punbb) which is easy to implement and proven to be good. Since I don't use ASP I don't know of any good forums in the language.

Do you realize that this forum has been around since 1999 (around 8 years ago when I posted this), and it's software was (and is (it is still being updated)) custom made by it's founders and some of it's other staff members?

[sad] ... misses the amazing old forums search...

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Original post by Posselosse - An advanced search function is one.

Yeah.

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- To be able to subscribe to all topics you want.

You can bookmark them.

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- Better profile page where you can read about current projects etc. As well as a link to recent posts (like a fast search for all posts the user has made).

I don't know. I figure that between the journal and webspace, users can do that if they care to.

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- To be able to click a link next to every topic to automaticly go to the last unread post in the thread as well as a link to the last post made in the topic.

Why? Right now, all you need to do is to click the last page in the forum list, and then hit 'end' when the page loads.

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- Get a "dot" before every topic you have posted in.

I'm fine with this being in my profile.

Incidentally, I don't see all of these features implemented in your forum, either.

Roboguy:
1. At the moment it seems impossible to subscribe to topics not made by you.
2. I know, that's why I suggested an updated version of the profile (it's not even a big update).
3. That feature is useful, but it can be nice to be able to search for all posts made by a specific user. This function is not needed though if you have an advanced search feature.
4. Nothing is necessary, but it helps users to find the posts they are looking for a lot faster.
5. I don't understand what that has to do with it? This site could have been founded when Jesus was born, but still there are features that haven't been implemented into it. Of course you don't need to improve your site, but since new features are "invented" every day I don't see the problem in making your own forum better. Why get mad for something that would be easily done and would improve the site?


Avatar God:
2. Of course I can, but you don't get an email sent to you just because you bookmark a topic
4. As I stated before: it's an improvement, but not an necessary one. You don't NEED to do anything just because it would improve the site. By not doing it it just takes a little bit more time to get where you want.
5. It helps when you want an overview of a special forum.

PunBB actually has all these features (except the "current projects" idea) and more. It sounds as if I'm advertising for the forum, but I'm not – I’m not associated with them in any way. I just like it and use it on several of my websites. This site is great in what it does, but there are other sites that does things right as well. The punbb developers are just looking for ways to improve their forum. Since this site's staff don't spend their entire time thinking about how to improve their forum I can understand there might be some features/functions that haven't yet been implemented. But again: that doesn't mean the forum doesn't need to be improved.

That is just it though, PunBB is a forum, GDNet is much more than just a forum. The whole site is built on custom code (some parts of that code are rather scary from what I gather) so plugging in a little PHP bulletin board would make absolutely no sense (especially considering the rest of the site is ASP based). So have a look around GDNet, all the other parts of the site that you have maybe missed and ask yourself if PunBB could provide a complete alternative to everything GDNet offers [evil]

Also, from previous posts by staff, GDNet's backend software is currently being repaired and upgraded/rewritten and most of the forum features you are after will be part of it as well as loads of other changes to the rest of the site ...but it takes time and the people working on it are volunteers, so you'll just have to be patient like the rest of us [smile]

Regards,
ViLiO

Just to be clear, I wasn't taking issue with your suggestion that the search needs improving; only with your proposed solution, which would be extreme overkill (to put it mildly).

An improved search function would mean less repeat questions (at least from the considerate users) I feel bad asking questions I know have been answered already but I can't seem to find them.