XF 2.2 Forum types "Search Forum" use examples?

[Tom McIntyre]

I have been looking at our overall forums in anticipation to the upgrade to xF3 and discovered that multiple thread type forums are already available (I had not noticed) and there is a Search type as well that I do not really understand.
Are there examples available for Search type forums?
I presume it looks like any other forum in the forum listing but has threads that have been selected by the search logic. Do people use this to created forums that represent a common concept that exists in other forums and categories?

 

[Chromaniac]

Search forums were introduced in 2.2 I think so you might already have access to them.

XF 2.2 Thread 'Search forums, SEO improvements and dev team news'

Jun 3, 2020

A new way to surface content​

Forums are usually devoted to a single subject matter and the threads they contain relate to that subject matter, unless it's all gone wrong and your users are wandering off topic. Threads belong to their parent forums, so if your board separates posts about kittens from posts about puppies into separate forums, you are never going to see a kitten thread and a puppy thread sitting next to each other within your forum hierarchy. This is how it has always been, it's the basic nature of the discussion forum paradigm.

But what if you...

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I do have a few of these configured. For me, they basically collect threads from multiple forums focused on same product category and provide a unified list for new users to easily go through if they want to.

I also at one point used it to collect threads by tags. Basically to collect important threads at a singular place. I now use featured threads for this functionality in 2.3.

 

[Mr Lucky]

Yes I use them and they are very useful.

See in action here, below the “normal” forums:

Forum list

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