Solution for forum quirks?

[Monique6ft]

Hello everyone,

My name's Monique and I'm new around here. I've been reading non-stop since I joined -- this place is an awesome resource! My current thinkpad is a way old 390X, but it does what I need it to do so I'm quite happy with it. I hope this forum will help me to keep it going as long as possible.

I'm having some trouble with how the forum works, can anyone help?

First off, is there a way to search for new posts since a particular date that I specify instead of since "last visit"? If I want to see new posts since, say, a date that's a week earlier than my last visit I can't seem to do that.

Second, is there a way to stop search results from timing out? When I have, say, six pages of new posts since my last visit, I click on a coupla interesting threads on page one, click back to page one, then the same for page two and so on. By the time I click back to page four or five the search results have timed out and I get a "no results" error. Now the later pages are lost, because if I try to do the same search again my "last visit" date has now changed so the results have changed too.

Third, is there a way to directly "go to" a page I specify within search results? If there are, say, 50 pages of search results there are places to click for the first three or the last three pages, but I can't seem to go directly to page 20 for example.


Monique

[rkawakami]

Welcome to thinkpads.com!

First off, is there a way to search for new posts since a particular date that I specify instead of since "last visit"? If I want to see new posts since, say, a date that's a week earlier than my last visit I can't seem to do that.

Don't believe that there is a way to specify a particular data range. Only a certain amount of time previous to today (one day, one week, two weeks, one month, etc. in the dropdown "Search Previous" option).

Second, is there a way to stop search results from timing out?

Here's what I do if there's a large amount of new posts that have occured since my last visit: Use the "Next" page link to go back several pages. Once there, instead of simply clicking on a thread to open it up in the current window, use your browser's command to open up the thread in a new tab (easiest) or new window. When finished dealing with that thread, close the tab/window and the original list of threads is still available. Continiue to work "forward" until you get back to the first "new" page of posts.

Third, is there a way to directly "go to" a page I specify within search results? If there are, say, 50 pages of search results ...<snip>

Yes. This involves manually editing the URL. On the second page of new posts, the address bar of your browser should show "&start=50" at the end. Simply change this number in multiples of 50 (one page) and submit the new URL by pressing the "Enter" key or the browser's GO button.

Search timeouts sometimes seem to occur if you submit them too close to each other (in time). Wait about 30 seconds between searches if you can. Also, the system appears to reset the "last visit" time based upon when your browser is closed OR your connection to the internet is terminated.

[Monique6ft]

Aha, thanks Ray, that really helped. Problems two and three are completely resolved now and navigating around this place is suddenly so much easier.

I'm still wrestling with problem one though:

Don't believe that there is a way to specify a particular data range. Only a certain amount of time previous to today (one day, one week, two weeks, one month, etc. in the dropdown "Search Previous" option).

Ok, I can't get this to work. The search page wants to have a meaningful keyword filled out. If I want all posts from the previous week for example, nothing gives me the right result. Leaving it blank or giving it a wildcard doesn't work. Trying some of the commonest words such as "the" "that" "with" "this" etc. doesn't work either.

Any further ideas, or should I just give up already?

Also one more question if I may -- how do I search the member list?


Monique

[rkawakami]

Ah, I misunderstood your problem. You do have to put some keyword in. It must be at least three characters long. You can use a "*" at the end of the word as a wildcard so you can use "problem*" to match "problem" or "problems". As far as using some of those common words, I don't know for sure if phpBB's search algorithm screens out those types of words, but trying them myself, it does appear to happen. My only suggestion would be to use something specific enough to what you are looking for. If it's ALL posts (no matter what the content is) within the last day, week, etc., then you may have to visit each forum individually and page back. All threads are place in chronological order by default (search option "Sort by", "Post Time", descending).

Maybe somebody else here with more intimate knowledge about the inner workings of phpBB can assist in your quest.

[Monique6ft]

If it's ALL posts (no matter what the content is) within the last day, week, etc.,...<snip>

Yes, that's it exactly!

Having to crawl through every forum one by one sure would be tedious, but then again, you can't have everything.

Oh well, perhaps someone else will chime in eventually.


Monique

[Harryc]

Try a few options in google search to see if it gets close to what you want. This particular search (link below) is setup for this forum only.

http://www.google.com/advanced_search?q ... S:official