Search : Under four character limit.

quote:
Originally posted by NoName
When searching the forums using the search function there is a limit too where anyword included in the search has to be atleast 4 characters or over.

This is really annoying.

no not realy, only sometimes in very rare cases, but then there are also ways to overcome this...

quote:
Originally posted by NoName
I can't search for abreviations or short words so I cant search for
"Signing me out"

Maybe the limit should be lowered to like....3 characters or more or 2 characters or more per word.

Yes, you can search for that... There is a difference between searching for:
signing me out
and
"signing me out"

The first example performs this search:
Search every post for "signing" and "me" and "out". Thus, the words don't have to be in that exact order. Of course because "me" has only 2 characters, the whole search can't be performed because of the 3-chars limitation.

The second example performs this search:
Search every post for "signing me out". Thus this will search for the complete sentence. It has more then 3 characters so the search can execute this.

quote:
Originally posted by NoName
Because if I wanted to search for something like....FBI or ANC I couldn't

That is indeed not possible, but you can use this trick if you know for sure that the three-letter words you're searching for are also used as words (which means there are spaces around it) and not as a part of a word:
Instead of searching for fbi, search for "fbi " (look at the use of the space and the quotes). This performs a search on the 4 letter sequence fbi<space>.

Also, mind that many people search for the wrong thing. Many people use to exact sentences to find something. eg: they search for "messenger plus! sourcecode". Of course, if you find something with this you are very lucky that someone has used these exact words and at the same time you will not see many posts about the same subject because other people didn't use this exact sequence of words.

Also, many people, instead of useing too long and too specific words they use too short or too non-secific words: eg: they search for plus. They will find far to many posts...

So what todo? Well for starters, start with as little as possible words. If you think you've found too many results then, and only then, try to narrow you search down by adding more words. In case your result is too little, try to think what people would write about the subject and don't use complete sentences or too specific words.

Example: searching for posts about the source of Messenger Plus!:
Start with source, see what the result is... This could be a very huge list including non related posts, so you need to narrow it down. But on the other hand, if you know that not many posts are written about it, then this would be a very good list already...

Anyways, if there are too many posts, search for source plus. Notice that I didn't use the quotes because I don't know in wich order the two words appear in the posts! Also, I didn't use messenger plus!, nor msgplus because many people will write the name in different ways, but there is always plus in it.

Also, when searching and not finding the result you want, try to use alternative searchwords and start over again.

And leave common redundent words out; you don't need them and they will only lower the search results. What I mean is, don't search for "signing me out" for example, but for sign out; I can make a whole post about signing-out without using the word me or signing for example, and thus you will never find the post when you search for "signing me out".

And in the above example, if you do wanna search for the exact sequence "sign out" (mind the quotes) then also search for "sign-out" (mind the minus sign), because that is another way that people could've writen it.

Searching in a proper way involves performing different searches with different searchwords... and above all common sense and practice...

Thus, with all this said... the limit of 3 characters is a good limit and for those rare occasions where you need to overcome the limit, there are many ways...

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