[Jocelyn]

Connections Pro,

This directory search engine is working pretty well, but every once in a while I’ll search for and entry and it will not come up. For example, “Vic Fry” is in my directory, but the search yields no result. I’ve tried searching just “Vic” and just “Fry” but no luck. Any idea why the search engine isn’t working for this particular entry, but it is working for other entries?

[Steven Zahm]

@ Jocelyn

By default MySQL will not perform searches for strings that are 4 characters or less in length. There nothing that can be done by Connections to get around that as that is a server level config option. One thing you can try, which will only work if your server supports it, Go to the Connections : Settings admin page and make sure FULLTEXT is check and Keyword search is not checked under the Search tab.

[IT Department]

@ Jocelyn:
Try searchin with quotation marks around that phrase, like “Vic Fry”. That should work. Of course that is no satisfying solution but at least a workaround for phrases longer than 3 characters.

@ Steven_Zahm:
Is there any way to override MySQL? In the WordPress search plugin Relevanssi e.g. you can set the “Minimum word length to index”. Maybe a technique similar to that used there, can be adopted somehow for Connections… Or how about an extra field for 3-to-1-character-entries that can be used as fallback, when standard fulltext fails? Because I really don’t like the idea to change the standard behaviour of my MySQL-engine!

• This reply was modified 10 years, 3 months ago by IT Department.
• This reply was modified 10 years, 3 months ago by IT Department.

[Steven Zahm]

@ roy

Not that I know of, I reviewed the doc on setting the minimum char length, it seemed like it could only be set at the server level in a .cnf file.

I’ll have to look at Relevanssi to see what they did … I’m sure I can learn all sorts of new things to further improve search in Connection. I’ve added that to my, ongoing, search improvement issue tracker.

Yep, you should never alter your DB after you’ve installed and been using it unless you really, really, know what you’re doing because it could easily lead to data loss.

[IT Department]

Do you have some kind of quick workaround? I have some customers that have a three-letter company name and they complain about, that they can’t find themselves in the business directory… :-(

[IT Department]

Maybe 2 other ideas regarding this issue…

How about auto completion of a search term entered? That way it wouldn’t be possible for the user to do searches under 4 characters.

Or is it possible to write some kind of redirect in the search, that company names less than 4 characters will be forwarded to right entry. For example as an option in the backend where I can define short search terms and connect them to the correct entry or as a rewrite rule in a special connections htaccess.

[Steven Zahm]

@ roy

Sorry, no I do not have any type of work around.

I do have type ahead searching on my wish list but I can’t commit as to when and how this will be implemented.

Using a short word stop list is an interesting idea. Off the top of my head, not certain how to pull it off. I’ve added this to my issue tracker.

[IT Department]

Hey Steve any news on this?

[Steven Zahm]

@ roy

No, nothing to report at this time. I’ve been heavily engaged in creating a very robust custom metabox and fields API for the 0.8 release due out hopefully before months end.

[Steven Zahm]

@ roy

I’ve added the stop word support to the search, just like WP handles it (actually uses the exact same code).

I still do not have a solution for doing legitimate short word searches yet. I am working on improving the search results right now … so maybe I’ll come up with something.

[Author]

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