When you are looking for a topic but cannot find i

geekfreak wrote: I`VE STARTED THIS TOPIC AS SOMETIMES I`M LOOKING EVERYWHERE BUT NO FINDING TOPIC. SO IF YOU WISH TO FIND ONE TOPIC . YOU CANNOT FIND PUT IT INTO TOPIC. HOPE SOMEONE ANSWERS TO TELL YOU WHICH PAGE ITS ON. MANY THANKS.  I`M TRYING TO FAN FAN`S OF THE BAND`S. TRANSATLANTIC,GLASS HAMMER & TANGENT. ALSO FISH/MARILLION TOO!!!!.

Dean wrote: Okay.   First off, the search is a pile of poo, no seriously, it's dreadful, truely awful, but it is usable if you know the tricks.   Here is your search:   As you have discovered puting your name in field "A" does not do quite what you'd expect, and similarily, putting something in field "B" doesn't do quite what you think it does and by magical coincidence putting something in box "C" also manages to do quite the opposite of what you'd expect it to do.   So, what do these fields do?   Field "A" finds the threads you have either created (see note 3) or you have posted in - it does not find the specific posts you have made.  Field "B" finds the threads created after the specified date, so if the drop-down is set to the default 6 Months it will not find threads that were created 7 months ago or 4 years ago even if the last post in that thread was made mere minutes ago. If in doubt set this to "Any Date"  Field "C" is a weird one.and it is related to Field "A": When you put a user name in field "A" and field "C" is set to "Posts" the search only returns the posts made by that user in threads he has created. When you put a user name in field "A" and field "C" is set to "Topics" the search returns the threads that contain posts made by the user (but not the posts themselves) So the reason why your search did not find anything is two fold: The "When were you infected by Prog?" Thread was created on 14 April 2010 - so the default Six Month search in field "B" would have failed. The "When were you infected by Prog?" Thread was created by "progpositivity" so with the field "C" is set to "Topics" and your name in field "A" the search would have failed. So, to make it work you need to set the date in field "B" to "Any Date" and the drop-dpwn in field "C" to "Posts" ... the problem there of course is it only displays the thread and not the specific posts you have made. All it tells you is that you have made a post somewhere in the 444 posts made in that thread (not a lot of use since you already knew that).   ________________________________________________________________________________________   However ________________________________________________________________________________________   There is another forum search you can use to find specific posts you have made in any given thread. This is located in the header-bar at the top of the first post on each page and is called "Topic Search". With this tool you can search an entire thread for a word or phrase OR if you click the Advanced Search option it will allow you to search for every post made by a specific User.   Woopie!   ________________________________________________________________________________________   However ________________________________________________________________________________________   There is another way, and that is to use Google to search the entire forum, to do this put "site:www.progarchives.com/forum" into google's search field with the phrase you are searching for, you can also put the user name in the search field too. To make life easier, the main PA pages (ie not the forum) have a google search built-in that saves having to type "site:www.progarchives.com/forum".         Hope that helps.

 

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Dean wrote: 1. Under "member Control Panel" (in menu bar under main logo at the top of this page) - look in "Subscriptions" and you'll see a list of every thread you've ever posted in.   Or   2. In your Member Profile, which you can see in the drop-down menu next to your username above your avatar on every post you make, select:    Find Posts: Find Members Posts   and you will be presented with the standard forum search page with your name pre-entered in the Search by User Name (Optional) box.   Now to search for all Posts you have made in the forum you need to select "Topics" in the Display Results As drop-down   And to search for all the Threads you have created in the forum you need to select "Posts" in the Display Results As drop-down.   To search for posts made more than six months ago you need to change the Find Posts drop-down.

Dean wrote: The forum search only searches thread titles, so unless the search words appear in the title then nothing will be found. Spelling is also important - (length not lenght for example ) - not only in the search string but also in the thread title - this is why the Mods will correct spelling errors in thread titles and rename them if they are too ambiguous - we're not just being overy pedantic or fastidious grammar nazis.   There is a third search method, and that is the   Topic Search that will search the thread body. Using this in conjunction with the main forum search can locate a specific post within a thread once you've located a likely thread to search - not immediately helpful perhaps, but I use it a lot to locate posts in long threads were I can remember someone posted something (having a good memory also helps).

Dean wrote: 4 ways, all horrible: Goto Member Control Panel (in the grey bar just above the thread title, or here: http://www.progarchives.com/forum/member_control_panel.asp) Click on "Subscriptions" (or click here: http://www.progarchives.com/forum/email_notify_subscriptions.asp) That will give you a list of every thread you have posted in Goto Member Profile Page (or here: http://www.progarchives.com/forum/member_profile.asp?PF=30374) and click on "Find Member Posts" (or here, Find Members Posts) Change "Find Posts" from "Last Six Months" to "Any Date" Change "Display Results As" from "Posts" to "Topics" Click "Start Search" Click on your Username in the lefthand colum next to your post Select "Find Member Posts" from the drop-down Menu (or here: http://www.progarchives.com/forum/search_form.asp?USR=Majikthise) Follow steps in Option 2 above. Goto Search (in greybar between FAQ and Calendar, or here: http://www.progarchives.com/forum/search_form.asp) Enter your Username in "Search by User Name (Optional)" box follow steps in Option 2 above.

Dean wrote: Anyway - here's how the Search operates.   If you set Display Results As "Posts" (Default) then the search will find the First Post of any matching thread. Since the Prog Chefs topic was started by Eric back in March 2007 you also have to set the "Find Posts" date to "Any Date" to be able to find that. eg http://www.progarchives.com/forum/search_results_posts.asp?SearchID=20090302075916&KW=Prog+Chefs    ...so regardless of how recently someone posted in the thread, the default option will not find the thread if it was started before the default time (Last Six Months).   However, if you set Display Results As "Topics" then the search will find the last post in the thread. Which in this case was only a few minutes ago, eg - http://www.progarchives.com/forum/search_results_topics.asp?SearchID=20090302075817&KW=Prog+Chefs   Yes, it's confusing, and yes, the default should be the one that finds the most recent post in any thread but it doesn't. Life eh?   Now, personally, I think the words "Posts" and "Topics" are reversed, but maybe that's just me.