Recent Topics button & Search all Forums option? - Diesel Forum

cadd · 01-02-2006, 10:14 PM

I was wanted to know if you could add an option to search all forums and to have a button that would show recent topics.

Thanks Travis

PS I’m s new PSD owner, and really like the site.

JLester · 01-02-2006, 10:54 PM

Those two options are very resource intensive. We had to disable them a while back due to the number of messages and traffic that we have.

Jason

cadd · 01-02-2006, 11:46 PM

Could people donate some money to upgrade the server & bandwidth?

I would donate a small amount if the improvements where helpful.

I think there is a a lot of Great info on the site, but I have found it hard to find specific threads with the search feature (unlike other forums (boating) that I'm a member of. And I always like to look at the latest topics that are going on.

cadd

Hoarsnest · 01-03-2006, 07:56 AM

cadd -

If you are logged into the site, when you go to the forums main index page, at the left hand side of the page there is a light bulb icon for each forum. If it is lit, that means there are new posts in that forum. When you go into the individual forum, look in the "replies" column towards the right side of the page. For each thread, if there are new posts, you will see a black bolded number, and a red number in parenthesis. The bold number is total number of replies to that thread, and the red number is the number of new replies since you last visited. If there is only one number in that column, and it is not bolded, that means there has been no new posts since you last visit. That should help you keep track of active threads.

As far as the search function goes, I sometimes would like to be able to search everything, but if you know specifically what you are looking for, you should be able to narrow the searches down to one or two forums you need to search. One tip to using the search function it to use the + and - modifiers in your search string. For example, if I wanted information on synthetic oils for the 6.0, but didn't want anything about Royal Purple in my results, my search string would probably look like this ----> "+synthetic +oil -Royal -Purple"

That should return results including Mobil 1, Amsoil, Redline, etc, but nothing about Royal Purple.

Good Luck,

Shawn

Dick Cutting · 01-03-2006, 08:09 AM

[ QUOTE ]
but if you know specifically what you are looking for, you should be able to narrow the searches down to one or two forums you need to search

[/ QUOTE ]

This is very true which drives home the reason to make sure posts are made in the correct forum for the subject matter of the post. IOW, "On Topic".

If we didn't try and keep things organized by moving "Off Topic" posts to the correct forums you can imagine just how much the search function would become a less and less valuable tool.

Everyone can help everyone else out by Posting "On Topic".

Dick

JLester · 01-03-2006, 09:42 AM

We already have multiple servers, each with dual processors. I don't think it would be worth it to go with more just to put those features back. It is really a coding problem anyway. The company that makes this forum software needs to optimize those functions better. They are supposedly working on it.

Jason

cadd · 01-03-2006, 08:57 PM

Thanks for the replies, the updated code\software is a key upgrade I would bet.

Travis

jnyost · 01-28-2006, 09:55 AM

[ QUOTE ]
Those two options are very resource intensive. We had to disable them a while back due to the number of messages and traffic that we have.

Jason

[/ QUOTE ]

There is enough money generated by advertisers to easily allow these options. There is no need for anyone to donate. I still can't understand why a site of this size uses such a poor choice in forum software. Heck, if you expect people to believe money is somehow that tight, I gett we could scrounge up enough money to get you a license of Vbulletin. Its not that expensive.

I frequently get aggravated by the poor search options and just give up and go elsewhere. I hate having to setup the search page everytime I visit it and then having to search each forum separately. It is just really poorly designed and ran.

JLester · 01-29-2006, 05:00 PM

vBulletin has its own problems too. UltimateBB is the elder statesman of forum software. vBulletin was basically a clone of it originally. I still prefer UBB to vB. It isn't really an issue of cost.

Jason

cadd · 02-01-2006, 09:38 PM

FYI

This post from Steve Spaulding about using google has helped me a lot...

[ QUOTE ]

I have found that it is much easier to search using google.

Try typing the following in the Goggle search box:

CPS replacement site:TheDieselStop.Com

Use of the "site:" advanced search feature limits the search to the specified website. In this instances I specified "TheDieselStop.Com".

What's really nice about doing it this way is that Goggle will search all the active forum pages as well as all the archived pages.

I'm not sure what impact it has on server loading but it's so quick I don't think it will cause any site problems.

Here's what google returned:
Results 1 - 20 of about 504 from thedieselstop.com for CPS replacement. (0.15 seconds)

Give it a try!

[/ QUOTE ]

cadd

Steve Spaulding · 02-01-2006, 10:01 PM

[ QUOTE ]
FYI

This post from Steve Spaulding about using google has helped me a lot...

[ QUOTE ]

I have found that it is much easier to search using google.

Try typing the following in the Goggle search box:

CPS replacement site:TheDieselStop.Com

Use of the "site:" advanced search feature limits the search to the specified website. In this instances I specified "TheDieselStop.Com".

What's really nice about doing it this way is that Goggle will search all the active forum pages as well as all the archived pages.

I'm not sure what impact it has on server loading but it's so quick I don't think it will cause any site problems.

Here's what google returned:
Results 1 - 20 of about 504 from thedieselstop.com for CPS replacement. (0.15 seconds)

Give it a try!

[/ QUOTE ]

cadd

[/ QUOTE ]

That wasn't me, although I posted in the same thread. I don't remember who it was. I commented on using the internal search function to search the archives.

jnyost · 02-03-2006, 10:53 PM

[ QUOTE ]
vBulletin has its own problems too. UltimateBB is the elder statesman of forum software. vBulletin was basically a clone of it originally. I still prefer UBB to vB. It isn't really an issue of cost.

Jason

[/ QUOTE ]

It may be the elder of the two but is lacking in so many ways to vB. There's a reason why vB is the software of choice for large forums. You can easily use full search functionality for sites with hundreds of thousands of posts. It would be more than enough for this site and probably make most of us much happier. As a web hosting owner and web developer I pay attention to how long it takes to get the information you need from a site. It takes way too much time to search each forum for the answer you need. I appreciate you offering this site but that doesn't mean it doesn't need major improvements.

Thanks
Jared

cadd · 05-09-2006, 12:13 PM

Ask and you shall receive [img]/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]

Nice to have the updated software!

cadd