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Something I've noticed repeatedly is that some people are honestly trying to search the forums and search the contributions for what they need, and are failing miserably. And in all honesty, I can't always blame them, because when I used the default search functions, I failed miserably at finding anything as well.

First rule of search is USE GOOGLE. Seriously. While I've been known to use the default search funtion if I'm looking for a thread I was just following yesterday, that Google wouldn't have had time to crawl yet, I can't think of any other circumstances that I would consider using the default search.

Searching the forums
Searching the forums in general is pretty simple. Just go to google, and type in "site:forums.oscommerce.com search phrase goes here". If you spend a lot of time searching the forums, you may want to consider just bookmarking this search. I have it saved on my bookmark toolbar, and when I need to search the forums, I just click on it. You can further refine your results by using quotation marks, by using - to exclude certain types of results, etc. If you have no idea what I'm talking about, read through Google's guide to search. Knowing these basic functions can save you hours.

Searching individual threads
Yep, you can use google to search these too. Very useful for 80+ page contribution threads. It takes a little more practice though.

First, go to the thread you want to search. Scroll down to the bottom of the page, and you will find a link to the "Lo-Fi version". This is what Google crawls when indexing the forums. Go to it, and copy the link. Now, go to google and type in site:[copied link]. Now, before you add the search phrase, you should delete the .html from the end of the link. This is because the url for all the pages of the thread just adds -[number] to the thread number, and deleting the .html causes google to search ALL the pages of the thread. Now, add your search phrase.

Example search: "site:http://forums.oscommerce.com/lofiversion/index.php/t58541 new infobox" - Searches the STS thread for how to add a new box to STS.

Searching the contributions
Just use "site:http://www.oscommerce.com/community/contributions search phrase" in the google search box. Again, if you use it often enough, it's probably worthwhile to bookmark it.

Choosing keywords
Always try at least a few obvious synonyms before giving up. If "site design" isn't working, try "template". I know it seems obvious, but it's amazing how many people don't. It's one thing not to know of a weird term used (I'm not going to admit how many times I've tried to google "Separate Price" looking for the main contribution thread, because I forgot it's Separate Pricing per Customer and gotten nothing but random threads with few responses) but try to at least cover the obvious ones.

If you're googling errors, don't include your unix path. Typing in "Warning: ftp_put(): php_connect_nonb() failed: Connection timed out (110) in /home/public_html/admin/froogle.php on line 349" isn't going to get you as many useful results as just "Warning: ftp_put(): php_connect_nonb()" or just "Warning: ftp_put(): php_connect_nonb() failed: Connection timed out " Try to figure out the parts of the error message that would be universal to people experiencing your problem, and only include that part in your search. And yes, googling error messages will usually help tremendously.

Great post thanks. The search function on this site is useless.

this is great tip.... thanks my brother

I'm just glad people are finding it useful. The search function is marginally usable if you read the advanced usage tips, but frankly, I'd still rather use Google unless it's a new thread. And the number of people asking basic questions because they can't figure out how to work the search function makes me cry.

Great post. I have added it to my signature. Now ours have pretty much identical content!! LOL

Oh good. Now I don't feel vaguely embarrassed at having a link to my own post in my signature, because at least I'm not the only one.

Thanks for an awesome tip! Even though I knew about Google site search, I still never made the connection that the forum's search function is useless -> use Google instead.

For all the Mac/Safari users out there, this is even easier if you use Sogudi. (Sogudi is a wonderful Safari mod that lets you define shortcuts that you type into the address bar followed by some terms that are included in the URL where you specify. If that explanation doesn't make sense or you don't think it sounds useful, Google it and give it a try.)

Anyway, I just defined two Sogudi shortcuts:
1) oscf http://www.google.com/search?q=@@@+site:ht...-8&oe=UTF-8
2) osccontrib http://www.google.com/search?q=@@@+site:ht...-8&oe=UTF-8

...and now I can type oscf <search terms> in my address bar to search the forums, or osccontrib <search terms> to search the contributions.

Oh, I like that suggestion. I don't have a Mac, but knowing Firefox, most things can be duplicated on it. And considering my toolbar on my non-work computer is so cluttered I can't fit my osc searches on there, I think I'll look into how to do something similar on Firefox.

Hello,

thanks for the info, its already useful, i used it to find this thread again after i had closed it, definatly was much faster at finding this thread than the forum search, although in forum search i searched for google search, and in google i searched for google search site...

anyways thanks for the info and links, and thanks to those who link to this as i was searching for something else and ran across a link to this.

you said you were gonna check out how to do that Mac shortcut in Firefox, i was going to ask you to let me know when you found out if you wanted, but figured id never check the thread again, i decided to go to the irc firefox channel and ask, here is an article i was told about there:

http://kb.mozillazine.org/Using_keyword_searches

i think thats what you want, though i didnt fully read the article i dont think.

Joh 3:16 KJVR
(16) For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.

thanks - jason

i love the Lord!

Good for you. Personally I'm more into Lord Of The Rings.

Vger

Gill, very good my man....very good!

Uh-Oh....
Has anyone else noticed now that the forum has been put on a new server that the Google thread searches no longer work? It will search the entire forum instead of the specific thread.

For example:
This use to work perfectly on the old forum last month:
http://forums.oscommerce.com/lofiversion/i...php?t58541.html "boxes"

The above would find "boxes" in that specific thread. Now, it will search the entire osC forum.

Anyone have an idea how to make this work as before?
Thanks guys,

Yea. This is a complete bummer. I so don't want to have to dig through a 200+ page thread for an answer. Whatta mess.

I think it is becasue the links aren't indexed for some reason. If you click on the Cached link, the thread will display and you can search as described.

Jack

I am still having a difficult time in searching this newer forum (not so new anymore). Particularily, the tip above for serching the individual threads no longer works. If you try, it would search the entire "forums.oscommerce.com" site instead of the Lo-Fi Version of the thread.

Anybody else experience this or have a solution to searching this new forum?

Firefox users can very easily build their own search plugins.
For example this is how my search box looks:


To have that I created 3 XML files and placed them in C:\Program Files\Mozilla Firefox\searchplugins

These files are:

osCAddOns.xml

osCForums.xml

and osCForumsLoFiVersion.xml