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Optional search (CGI)


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Just a mention for consideration in regards to the IPB search feature. With so many requesting to be able to search smaller words etc and the consideration of limitations in MySQL could IPB consider adding a optional cgi search to the mix? When we're talking power, no limitations in search, fast indexing etc.. from what I have read the CGI searches are the best. I was also reading most big search engines go this route. It seems as if this would be a extremely powerful feature to add and sell on. I will more than likely have to buy a zoom script or something similar to do this but it would be nice to see IPB accommodate the need of a more powerful search feature.

BTW - some of these external programs can also be placed on separate servers and used, making it much easier to enhance site performance

Thank You

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Sphinx doesn't work for IPContent or Classifieds. My new project doesn't utilize the actual forum application



You would need to write a search extension for any search method you utilize in IP.Board, even if that was a 'CGI' search. If I were you, I'd look at requesting developers of the apps I use to add a Sphinx extension to the apps, and even look into how it works to put one in your own application. It will do exactly as you want (higher performance, no minimum character limitatons etc) and it's already supported in the software.
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What you are asking for is an alternative higher-performance search engine, and that is exactly what Sphinx is. No matter what alternative search engine(s) we support, a plugin file would still be required per-application, so even if we switched to "Some Other CGI-Based Engine v1.0" instead of Sphinx, it would not change the situation you are describing.

IP.Content does not support Sphinx out of the box because it is incredibly complex and most users do not have thousands of records in each database. It wouldn't matter what backend search engines we use - the status would be the same. As an aside, IP.Content may support Sphinx in the future.

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I agree with this as well. For me, there's a severe limitation with search regardless of the SQL or Sphinx search and I just can't get it to work for my forum. As forums grow, searching becomes more and more of a requirement. Neither search method will accommodate search strings such as C-160 or other hyphenated words and it is a severe limitation. I agree that IP.Board searching needs updating and / or replacement with a more robust engine. An example is to search for C-160 as my example here, search finds nothing.

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You can accommodate strings such as C-160, however it requires some changes to the Sphinx index configuration file (for MySQL fulltext, it would require a source-level modification because the '-' character is a special character in fulltext searching, so we have to manually account for it).

For sphinx, I believe you would need to modify the translation table for the index, which is beyond the scope of the software

http://sphinxsearch.com/docs/current.html#charsets

The reality is, this would have to be done for any search engine.

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I've been looking at external search sources for example Zoom search is just one, many features that are controlled right from an administration panel. Very slick. Tried it on a site using 1 and 2 letter searches and worked a dream.

I personally think all of IPB software should be Sphinx ready standard.

Regards

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I've been looking at external search sources for example Zoom search is just one, many features that are controlled right from an administration panel. Very slick. Tried it on a site using 1 and 2 letter searches and worked a dream.



I personally think all of IPB software should be Sphinx ready standard.



Regards


It is barring IP.Content.
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