I'm sorry but I cannot stand to use the board search on this website, the limit of four characters is way to high, because some some words are simply shorter then four letters, and when searching for something this really annoys me. I am sorry but I cannot stand it any more, and that is why I posted this.

I want the ability to search for things, without being restricted.

I can somewhat agree with this since there are keywords and such that are more 3 letters long that are a part of the IPB site itself. I mean there's IPB, ACP, PHP they are all three lettered and very few people spell out Admin Control Panel, Invision Power Board etc and so it makes it difficult to get an accurate search result when looking.

You also can't search for certain errors because they have two letter words in it.

This is ultimately a MySQL restriction, not an IPB restriction. If your server admin allows you to reduce the character limit, you can do.

We're talking about on this site.

If you're searching for one of those common three-letter-acronyms, then you're going to get more results than you want, search for a more unique word in what you want to find.

I often want to search for 3 letter words here. Last night I wanted to search on "swf attachments" as I was having an issue with swf attachments. Needless to say that swf was rejected. One of IPS's sidelines is hosting so one would assume that they have this forum on the fastest server out there and allowing 3 letter word searches wouldn't be an issue. I allow 3 letter word searches in my forum. Perhaps my quad core server has more grunt? Wouldn't surprise me as my forum is a lot more responnsive than this one.

3DKiwi

One way around the limit is to use the '+'. For example, '+swf+attachments' works.

And who would know that without being told or remember that on a whim if they don't have to do it for any other search?

If you go to the search page, the technique of using the + sign is mentioned on the 'Advanced Usage Help' popup.

If you reduce mysql's fulltext limit to 3 characters, mysql themself tell you it is VERY inefficient. You effectively remove all benefits of using fulltext searching to begin with.

Thank you Michael. I was searching for the old pinned topic from Beyond where the search default was discussed in depth.

Well a better search function would be really needed, I agree. Too few letters, and don't blame it all on the server, there must be some other way to build it..

When you click on search in a forum there is a little box which says "search this forum only". That's really great. But I'd like it to do the same when you are in topics: "search this topic only"... instead of also saying forum there.

Doesn't change the fact it's a MySQL issue, not IPB We aren't prepared to compromise the efficiency of our servers in order to reduce the character limit MySQL sets. As Brandon said, MySQL themselves acknowledge it isn't a good idea.

If you need a search not character-restricted, there's always google. You can type a phrase into google's search box, then add "site:forums.invisionpower.com" after it to restrict the search to our site. Unfortunately, however, we can't be changing around MySQL configuration values for this.

You can search a topic (only) with the search field at the bottom of the topic. If you'd like to suggest the search field at the top of the screen recognize this and provide the same option, feel free to use our feature suggestion forum to suggest this.

So you mean I can add a google search box that works just as well in finding the topics, listing them exc, but is not character-restricted?



Yes I'd like to suggest this But I thought this was the feedback/suggestion forum... or where can I find the suggestion forum?

Google

my-small-word site:forums.invisionpower.com

http://forums.invisionpower.com/index.php?showforum=298

Couldn't IPB adjust the string so that it is valid?

So, for example (to use what someone else said) if "swf attachment" - which would normally fail, because "swf" is only 3 characters long, couldn't IPB convert it into "+swf+attchment" ?

Really, man it is so annoying.

Search better?

If you're searching for IPB, ACP, etc. You won't likely find what you're looking for.

But it doesn't work like that.

Here are some random examples that are quite specific but would get blocked:
Custom mod
Attachment bug
More PM space

Not if you use the following:
Custom+mod
Attachment+bug
More+PM+space

Or:

custom (insert better keyword here)
attachment (insert better keyword here)

Soz for the lazy bump, but not only this happens inthe search, but also useless topics related to my search query..
Remove postcount was my query, and i see 27 pages of results, but non containing the info i want..
I'll just keep looking tho, found some interesting posts in it