Use Google to search the forum.

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Nov 29, 2004
7,808
22
Scotland
"...Could you help a little with how to do this please..."

Some folks have complained about the built in forum search facility not working as well as they would like. Here is a possible fix. It is a little tricky for the non technical, however you only have to set it up once and you will be able to use this to search any web site, not just the BCUK forum.

I am using the Google Chrome web browser, it should work fine in other browsers.

Open up a web page, in this case I am using the Google search page.

Screen%2520Shot%25202012-04-09%2520at%252022.50.20.jpg


Add a bookmark to the bookmark bar (the word google indicates the presence of the new bookmark).

Screen%2520Shot%25202012-04-09%2520at%252022.50.47.jpg


Right click (or ctrl click) the new bookmark to bring up some menu options, click 'Edit'.

Screen%2520Shot%25202012-04-09%2520at%252022.51.02.jpg


A window appears showing the properties for the bookmark.

Screen%2520Shot%25202012-04-09%2520at%252022.52.03.jpg


I have replaced the name 'Google' with the words 'Search this Site', you can name it whatever you want, STS, SEARCH or whatever.

Screen%2520Shot%25202012-04-09%2520at%252023.09.46.jpg


I then replace the URL with the following text.

javascript:Qr=prompt('Search%20Site%20for','');if(Qr)location.href='http://www.google.com/search?&q=site:'+encodeURIComponent(window.location.hostname)+'+'+escape(Qr)

Click 'Save' and then navigate to a website that you plan to search, in this case 'BushcraftUK'. Then click your new search bookmark.

A window appears into which you can type your search terms.

Screen%2520Shot%25202012-04-09%2520at%252022.57.40.jpg


I am searching for the word 'Mors'.

Screen%2520Shot%25202012-04-09%2520at%252022.57.56.jpg


My search results.

Screen%2520Shot%25202012-04-09%2520at%252022.58.35.jpg



----------------------


If you wish to exclude some search terms, type them into the search box with a - directly in front of them, they will then be excluded from the search.

Thus...

searching for 'cheddar' brings up a surprisingly large number of cheesy hits on the forum.

searching for 'cheddar stilton' brings up even more cheesy threads.

searching for 'cheddar -stilton' brings up only the cheddar related threads that do not also refer to stilton.

There some other tweaks available, more here.

Happy searching. :)
 
Last edited:

Adze

Native
Oct 9, 2009
1,874
0
Cumbria
www.adamhughes.net
As far as I can see from trying to set up the search thing on fire fox using my normal user level of skill is that I cant, :(

It does work with firefox, but if you just copy the string from the original post it'll likely fail as the forum appears to have added some spaces - i.e. "locatio n" should read "location", "%2 0" should read "%20" and "compo nent" should read "component"

Fix those and it should work nicely.
 

Adze

Native
Oct 9, 2009
1,874
0
Cumbria
www.adamhughes.net
Step by step instructions for Firefox:

1.) Open Firefox, go to BCUK and open this thread.

2.) On the menu bar at the top, click View, put the mouse pointer over Toolbars and make sure there is a tick in the box for Bookmarks Toolbar.

3.) Select the javascript string (the bold text in post one of this thread) with the mouse and copy it to the clipboard (either press CTRL + C on the keyboard or right click the text while it's selected and choose Copy from the context menu)

4.) Create a new bookmark by right clicking the bookmarks toolbar (it'll probably still have "Most Visited" and "Getting Started" links on it if you're not sure what it is) and choosing "New Bookmark" from the context menu

5.) Type a name for the bookmark - e.g. search this site - into the Name field and then paste the javascript string into the Location field. Make sure the three additional spaces (one in "locatio n", one in "%2 0" and the last in "compo nent") have been removed from the javascript string, then click the OK button.

Cheers!
 

ged

Bushcrafter (boy, I've got a lot to say!)
Jul 16, 2009
4,976
13
In the woods if possible.
As far as I can see from trying to set up the search thing on fire fox using my normal user level of skill is that I cant, :(

All you have to do is add the text "site:bushcraftuk.com" at the end of the search text that you give to any search engine. For example I might type

search engine site:bushcraftuk.com

in Google's search box to search just this forum.

It really doesn't need to be complicated.
 
Nov 29, 2004
7,808
22
Scotland
All you have to do is add the text "site:bushcraftuk.com" at the end of the search text that you give to any search engine. For example I might type

search engine site:bushcraftuk.com

in Google's search box to search just this forum.

It really doesn't need to be complicated.

See post 5. :)
 

Adze

Native
Oct 9, 2009
1,874
0
Cumbria
www.adamhughes.net
I really like Sandbender's javascript+bookmark search - it's more elegant than adding site:URL to your search terms, considerably faster too.

A fair point would be that it's Google-centric, but be honest, when was the last time you used Altavista or Lycos? Even Bing and Yahoo have such triflingly small shares in the search market as to be practically a rounding error.

If you add up all the search engine traffic which isn't Google's, the total is less than a quarter of that which Google handles.

http://gs.statcounter.com/#search_engine-ww-monthly-201106-201206
 

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