A question about advanced search

[Juan F. Ramirez]

I can't have a search of games that includes mp3 in their 'additional files' section (not ay).

How can it be done? (If possible)

[PeterJ]

@Juan F. Ramirez,

You can't. Let me look at the weekend (if I have time).

[Juan F. Ramirez]

@Juan F. Ramirez,

You can't. Let me look at the weekend (if I have time).

Don't worry, not urgent. Thanks!

[PeterJ]

Done @Juan F. Ramirez,

[Juan F. Ramirez]

Great!

[XTM]

Hello,

I didn't want to create another thread for this, as it is also a question about the advanced search function, just an entirely different one as it is about the forum search.

I was trying to find posts containing the game title "Alien 8", however I noticed that it seems impossible to search for this specific query because the "8" will always be filtered out. Is it because it is too short? Is there a minimum amount of letters for each word entered into the search field?
Thus, if you are searching for "Alien 8", as it filters the "8", you will instead just find everything with "Alien". If the search is set to show posts as results, you will currently get 70 pages of results including this word - most posts obviously won't be related to "Alien 8" and going through pages too quickly will trigger the "Sorry but you cannot use search at this time..." message.
It's not too bad if you set it to only list topics.

Unfortunately you also can't seem to search for a specific text/string including the spaces. So if you wanted for example search for posts containing the name "Miner Willy", you will find a lot of posts where both words come up but separately, the obvious ones being "Manic Miner" and "Jet Set Willy". I guess you can't do an actual search that includes the spaces?

By the way, this is not a nitpick, just a question for clarification.

[Einar Saukas]

That's a question for @PeterJ.

The forum is completely separated from the rest of the site.

[PeterJ]

@XTM,

Good question:

Click on the cog for advanced options, and try the following:

Code: Select all

+manic +willy

The + means must include.

Alien 8 is probably a no-goer.

Edit: also try and reduce search results by searching only certain sections of the forum if possible. You can also filter to specific authors.

All search options available here:

https://www.phpbb.com/support/docs/en/3 ... _advanced/

[flatduckrecords]

@XTM @PeterJ

Try this:

Code: Select all

+Alien +8*

That seems to return results with both “words”, at least. I’m not sure if there’s a way to further filter or sort by phrase/proximity, but maybe it’s helpful anyway!

[Edit]

Actually, I think this works better:

Code: Select all

 +Alien*8 

[XTM]

Thanks for the responses.

I already had used the + for "must include" yesterday, but in the various searches I performed, they did not seem to make any difference.
Example:
target renegade = 368 matches
+target +renegade = 368 matches

@flatduckrecords
Interesting, since at the top of the results it says "ignored: 8*". I think I had tried the * yesterday and saw that, so assumed it wouldn't work. But it actually does not ignore the 8, as the many search results prove. It will include pretty much anything with "Alien" regardless of whether the 8 comes up. In some posts there is an 8 somewhere, in others not:

8-bit computer .... Zak McKraken And The Alien Mindbenders

Ever wanted to play alien Squash with a baseball bat? .... Your Sinclair 89: Beaut Box 4

This one contains an 8, but it does not get highlighted in red:

The only games I felt lacking on the Spectrum from the C64 were Maniac Mansion, Zak McKraken And The Alien Mindbenders and Apollo 18.

The 2nd one you added seems much better indeed, even though the majority of results are "Alien8" without the space. There are a few "Alien 8" results but for some reasons they do not get highlighted in red.

Well, I think we'll leave it at that. Sadly it seems you can't easily search for an exact game title that has a space between words, because the search will then come up with many posts which contain both words, not necessarily right next to each other, or if you use the *, what you are looking for is in there somewhere, but most of the results will have both words connected with the space removed, usually a filename or URL (e.g. like targetrenegade.gif instead of Target Renegade). Can't be helped, insert "shrugging smiley" picture here

[PeterJ]

Hi @XTM,

You could post on phpBB forums and ask for the extra functionality, and hope they add something in a future release (I think it unlikely). It's not something we can change I'm afraid.

Best wishes

Peter

[XTM]

No worries, I can't really be bothered to register on there so I'll live with it. Thanks for your efforts.

By the way, I entered this query into Google:

Code: Select all

"Alien 8" site:https://spectrumcomputing.co.uk/forums/

It says "55 results" which seems to check out, but then it only lists 12 or so ...

Also, I did google for this issue and the general gist is that this was never possible in phpBB, quite an oversight/limitation.
My assumption why it can't be done, and I might be totally wrong, is that it maybe tokenises words to save space in the database, a bit like the Speccy's BASIC Keywords, so instead of saving the 9 letters for RANDOMIZE it becomes just 1 byte (I assume). Maybe something similar, obviously with more than 1 byte, is applied in phpBB or the database ...