How to search Open Forum Archives

[Pitcher]

I have asked a large number of questions as I have been learning how to operate Animation:Master. I used to save URLs so that I could revisit the many helpful answers that I received. Unfortunately, my computer got a virus last summer and had to be cleaned of all contents. I no longer have my own index of former questions, and I tried to use the search engine here for topics that I am sure I asked about before. I also tried to search under my name. The search engine is finding no entries, regardless of where I search. Is the search engine not operating, or is there something extra I need to do?

[robcat2075]

I've discovered that unless you explicitly pick a forum in the drop down list you will get no results.

 

Maybe Rodney or Jason can shed more light on that.

[Rodney]

When we search from the main forum the search filter usually defaults to 'Forums' (i.e 'All Topics') *BUT* when we are inside a specific forum... such as the Open Forum that default changes to 'This Topic' or 'This Forum'. That more often than not results in few (if any) results.

 

So, how to proceed?

 

Make sure the filter (that button in the search panel) is set to anything other than 'This Forum'.

Set it to 'Forums' or 'All Topics' or 'Member' (if looking for posts from certain members... before launching the search.

 

Also, standard rules of search tend to apply so we will get fewer results if we specific too much information.

Example:

 

If I search for "All cool topics with the word 'Model'" I am not going to get any matches.

If I search for "Models" I may get too many.

So I need to refine my search.

 

And... it can help to drop end characters off of word like "Models". Search for "Model" instead.

The first will return fewer results while the second will return the results of the first *and* all the rest of the occurrences of the word 'Model'.

 

I should say that I almost never use the full search editor... usually don't have to... but more specific criteria can be identified there.

More often than not however we want MORE results rather than fewer so it's best not to limit our searches with too many filters.

 

The number one reason for few/no results however is 'All Forums' vs 'This Forum'.

I looked for a setting to try to get the default to set to 'All Forums' but couldn't find one so the user must specify that as an option.

[Rodney]

In re-reading your topic/question it occurs to me that you might think there are topics in the forum titled 'Open Forum Archives'.

That would seem to be a logical conclusion, however, to the best of my knowledge that is only a placeholder for topics to go when they are 'archived'.

Currently there aren't any topics in the Open Forum that are archived.

(There are topics in the greater forum that are... they can be found elsewhere)

 

Archiving is something the forum software can do behind the scenes but for the most part I have unarchived almost every topic in the forum because archiving limits interaction by forum members (i.e. we cannot reply to an archived topic).

 

So, I believe the direct answer to your question of 'How can I search the Open Forum Archive?' is: There is nothing in that forum to search.

The plan would be to move things there eventually that don't have any particular relevance to A:M Users but relevance is often a judgement call.

I'd remove that particular archive forum but then someone might fear topics (that were never there in the first place) are forever lost.