Zettelkasten Forum


Can the forum search here be improved?

@ctietze

When I use the forum search on this website, I never really find what I want in a sensible amount of time. I think this is because the search results are comments / individual posts instead of threads, which leads to too many results to go through until the one I'm looking for finally appears. The search also doesn't seem to favour matches in thread titles over matches in comments. Usually threads are what I want to find, not individual comments.

An example: If I want to find the thread "org-mode vs taskpaper" and enter its exact title (which is unrealistic, but should make it more likely to appear) into the search field, I have to go through 7-8 pages of search results with the "Next" button before the first comment from that thread appears in the list of results. As a comparison: If I make a DuckDuckGo search with the same search string, the desired thread is the first search result – even without a keyword like "Zettelkasten Forum"...

Comments

  • Type onto Firefox's URL window site:forum.zettelkasten.de/ "org-mode vs taskpaper" and you will receive joy! (You are using Firefox, yes?)

    Will Simpson
    I must keep doing my best even though I'm a failure. My peak cognition is behind me. One day soon I will read my last book, write my last note, eat my last meal, and kiss my sweetie for the last time.
    kestrelcreek.com

  • edited December 2020

    @Will Thanks for the tip! I use Safari, but seems to work with that as well. Still would be better to have the search work on the website search itself, though – otherwise that seems a bit pointless. And you wouldn't have to prepend the actual search string with site:forum.zettelkasten.de/ (which of course could be automated with KM, but still).

  • Automating with Keyboard Maestro gives you superpower search capabilities not just for forum.zettelkasten.de but everywhere on the internets.

    Will Simpson
    I must keep doing my best even though I'm a failure. My peak cognition is behind me. One day soon I will read my last book, write my last note, eat my last meal, and kiss my sweetie for the last time.
    kestrelcreek.com

  • @Will True, you might have convinced me to do that :)

  • Will Simpson
    I must keep doing my best even though I'm a failure. My peak cognition is behind me. One day soon I will read my last book, write my last note, eat my last meal, and kiss my sweetie for the last time.
    kestrelcreek.com

  • i am not using the search function in the forum. It might be better to remove it? I use DuckDuckGo.com to search the forum.

    @ctietze have you considered Google? It's free, can be embedded into an existing site and is very efficient.

    my first Zettel uid: 202008120915

  • We've added DuckDuckGo search to the main site, but you're right, I haven't ever changed the forum code to reflect that. I'll bump that task in my plain text org-mode todo list so I do it sooner :)

    Author at Zettelkasten.de • https://christiantietze.de/

  • @ctietze Thanks, although Will's suggestion pretty much solved the problem for me personally ;)

  • @Will said:
    I'll show you mine.

    Search Current Site with Quoted Text

    Thanks, Will! The RegEx part would have taken me a while to figure out :)

  • Found a way to use a DuckDuckGo search box!

    Author at Zettelkasten.de • https://christiantietze.de/

  • Thanks, @ctietze. These little tweaks are great.

    Will Simpson
    I must keep doing my best even though I'm a failure. My peak cognition is behind me. One day soon I will read my last book, write my last note, eat my last meal, and kiss my sweetie for the last time.
    kestrelcreek.com

  • @Will said:
    Thanks, @ctietze. These little tweaks are great.

    I second that!

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