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desert_gold_hound New user 18 Posts |
I am not sure if I am posting in the right spot or not. I have problems with the search. I can not search all forms and don't know where to look. I am not asking you to fix anything. I am simply trying to ask if there is something I can do?
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DWRackley Inner circle Chattanooga, TN 1909 Posts |
Hi, desert_gold_hound. Welcome to the Café!
The Café search engine was limited quite a while ago for technical reasons. Probably the best way to find anything these days is to use Google. If you search using the parameter site:themagiccafe.com followed by your desired search terms, it will show you what’s in the public areas. It will NOT show what’s in the private areas, but at your present post count you wouldn’t see those anyway. Best!
...what if I could read your mind?
Chattanooga's Premier Mentalist Donatelli and Company at ChattanoogaPerformers.com also on FaceBook |
desert_gold_hound New user 18 Posts |
Thanks for the advice and making me feel really stupid for not thinking about that LOL. I am not worried about getting into the limited area's right away as I still have beginning areas to explore. I will start using this search ability.
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Dave Scribner Assistant Manager Lake Hopatcong, NJ 4849 Posts |
You can use the Café search engine if you know what forum your interested in. For example, if you are interested in general card work, you can search in the workers forum. If you want something using gimmicked coins, you'd look in Trick coin trickery forum.
Where the magic begins
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EVENTUCATOR New user 61 Posts |
I must agree with desert_gold_hound
it is not easy to find a place relevent to your query. I am looking for a SILK with INTERNATIONAL FLAGS on so I can 'disappear several colour silks (or flags) and have them appear all together on one silk? I will try the suggestion of DWRackley TANX |
Dave Scribner Assistant Manager Lake Hopatcong, NJ 4849 Posts |
Eventucator, this is exactly my point. If you want find something about silks or silk magic, you would enter you key word or words in the search enging and select "smooth as silk" Seems pretty simply to me to figure that one out.
For what it's worth, I did the search for you and currently there is nothing on the Café that fits your question so even a google search isn't going to help you. In this case, you should go to the silk forum and post your question.
Where the magic begins
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FrenchDrop Inner circle I can name that tune in 1647 Posts |
The good thing about using Google to search the whole site at once is that you can find items related to your search that might not be in the most obvious place. If, for example, someone had just announced a new line of printed silks, including one with multiple international flags on it, you might find mention of it in Latest and Greatest. Or if, by some wild coincidence, someone happened to have a silk like the one you're looking for and was trying to sell it, you mind find it in the section where people sell magic. If it's on the site (and not in the restricted areas), Google's site:themagiccafe.com option would find it without your having to guess where it might be and run the same search on multiple forums.
"A great magician has said of his profession that its practitioners '… must pound and rack their brains to make the least learning go in, but quarrelling always comes very naturally to them.'” -- Susanna Clarke, Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell
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Donald Dunphy Inner circle Victoria, BC, Canada 7563 Posts |
Quote:
On 2012-10-09 02:35, FrenchDrop wrote: Google won't be able to access an area like the "Buy and Sell", because members need 50 posts to access it. It's my understanding that Google can only access what's out in the open. Like you said, it can't look at the restricted areas. - Donald
Donald Dunphy is a Victoria Magician, British Columbia, Canada.
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Randwill Inner circle 1914 Posts |
I think what confuses users is that, when they go to the Café Search page, the first option in "Search In:" is "All Forums". Of course, using this you get the error message, "You must select a forum to search."
Removing the entry "All Forums" from that list of options might be helpful since it is useless being there. Because this is rather obvious, I can only assume that whoever is responsible for the mechanics of the website is unable or doesn't have the time to make this change. There are a lot of knowledgeable members here. Perhaps the call could be put out for a computer website programmer who knows how (or has the time) to make this change on the Search page. |
FrenchDrop Inner circle I can name that tune in 1647 Posts |
Quote:
On 2012-10-09 10:28, Donald Dunphy wrote: I didn't realize Buy and Sell was restricted. But it was just an example. The point is that Google can search all the unrestricted forums at once and find posts that aren't in the first place you'd look. It's a lot easier than going through the list of the Café's zillion forums -- especially since more than 150 of the forums listed in Search start with "The" and are found in the T's...which makes searching alphabetically for the appropriate forum tricky...and many forums have clever names that don't make it immediately clear what they're about...which makes searching for the forum that fits your topic tricky. Until there's a working Search All Forums option -- or another Search just to help you find the correct forum to search -- it makes much more sense to use Google and its site:themagiccafe.com option and save the board's built-in search for those few forums Google can't see into.
"A great magician has said of his profession that its practitioners '… must pound and rack their brains to make the least learning go in, but quarrelling always comes very naturally to them.'” -- Susanna Clarke, Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell
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Dave Scribner Assistant Manager Lake Hopatcong, NJ 4849 Posts |
Quote:
On 2012-10-09 13:18, Randwill wrote: By this time, even new users should have seen the multiple topics about this subject. Even if they don't, rather than doing a little research, they post the same question over and over "I tried the search and it says I must select a forum". Now they know to post this question either in the manager forum or tech forum but they won't take a minute and actually use the working portion of the engine and look for "search" in either of those forums. As to making the change, since the subject has been discussed many many times, it shouldn't be necessary to make the change. The situation is being worked on and it's not a matter of not knowing how to do it. Gene literally wrote the programming for the Café from scratch so he's well aware of what can and cannot be done.
Where the magic begins
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Randwill Inner circle 1914 Posts |
Dave, my suggestion is that Gene ask if there is someone who knows how to remove those two words, "All Forums" from the drop down menu on the Search page. I'm not a programmer so I don't know if this is a simple change that a knowledgeable person could make in half an hour or a major revamp that would require the whole site to be down for weeks. It might be worth looking into though.
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Dave Scribner Assistant Manager Lake Hopatcong, NJ 4849 Posts |
Basically, anyone making a change to Café programming would need access to our data base and I can tell you with absolute certainty, that isn't going to happen.
It seems that the issue here and each time it happens, is that members can't do a little thinking before trying the search to determine the proper forum. Removing the "all forums" only would save a step. It would still require a forum stipulation and we'd be right back to where we are now.
Where the magic begins
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FrenchDrop Inner circle I can name that tune in 1647 Posts |
"A great magician has said of his profession that its practitioners '… must pound and rack their brains to make the least learning go in, but quarrelling always comes very naturally to them.'” -- Susanna Clarke, Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell
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Dave Scribner Assistant Manager Lake Hopatcong, NJ 4849 Posts |
I guess I need to remind everyone why we don't have a search all feature. We do not own our server and it's shared with others which limits accessibility. Searching all directly on the Café requires every search to look at 4,373,341 posts whether relevant or not. It's not as simple as adding a search button on the home page.
If you remember, the last time we had a search all capability, the Café came to a complete stop. That's why we are limiting the amount of search capability right now.
Where the magic begins
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FrenchDrop Inner circle I can name that tune in 1647 Posts |
Quote:
On 2012-10-09 21:56, Dave Scribner wrote: You might check out the link I posted above. It talks about how to add a customized Google search to a web page. Google does the searching of your web site and posts the results on your page in your chosen format. Anyone who's capable of building an entire PHP-based Internet message board from scratch would find it child's play to add a new field to the Search page that uses Google (and says something along the lines of "Use Google to search all unrestricted forums at once") and remove the "All Forums" option from the drop-down list in the built-in, forum-specific search. This should require no alteration of the message board's database; just an alteration of the Javascript and possibly the server-side script that creates the Search page.
"A great magician has said of his profession that its practitioners '… must pound and rack their brains to make the least learning go in, but quarrelling always comes very naturally to them.'” -- Susanna Clarke, Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell
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