Searching username on xf2

[Jake B.]

This has been bugging me for a while, I think I had made a thread about it on the xf2demo but can't remember for sure and am unable to find it now.

In xf1 if you searched for a username in the normal global search form you'd get a sidebar with a list of users that match your search parameters. For example:




However, on xf2 this doesn't happen anymore. Is this intentional? I know I can got o Members and search there, but being able to use the global search for it was always useful

 

[Mike]

It's intentional and no plans for it to return. You can use the search in the member section if you're after a particular user.

 

[RobinHood]

The only issue with that is that I can't see a way to search for part of a username, as with the matched users results on XF1.

For example, say I want to find the user Jake Bunce, but I can't remember that his username starts with 'Jake', all I can remember is that part of his username is 'Bunce'

If I use main search and search for 'Bunce' in the member field, I get nothing.

If I use the search widget on the members page, I get no autocomplete drop down as I'm looking for the second half of the username, and upon submission it brings me to the profile page for the exact user 'Bunce', which isn't the one I'm after.

After that, I can't think of any other way to generate a list of users with 'Bunce' in the name to try and find the exact member I'm after. If I use less of their username and say use 'unce' then I get an error and no member results at all.



If I new the member's entire name then I probably wouldn't be searching for them, or I'd be able to find them using the autocomplete.


It would be nice to have partial username matching in the search somehow, and the ability to search for users from the global search box and/or main search page for when you're trying to find a particular user to message them or view their profile, and not necessarily the content posted by that user.




I currently use one of Andy B's add ons for this kind of partial match member searching quite regularly.

 

[Jake B.]

After that, I can't think of any other way to generate a list of users with 'Bunce' in the name to try and find the exact member I'm after. If I use less of their username and say use 'unce' then I get an error and no member results at all.

Even if you do remember part of his name and search "Jake" You'll get sent directly here: https://xenforo.com/community/members/jake.1164/

Granted, there is an autocomplete, but it won't show everyone so it's nearly impossible to find some users this way if they have a common name

 

[Triops]

This is even worse if users use the word of the forums topic in their username. If you then don't know the full name, you are lost.

Eg. "Aqua" in a forums on aquariums: aqua man, aquator, aquanaut, aqua jim, aquapete, aso. In my forums are about 2400 users with the most important keyword in their names, and 700 with second.
One could say "type more letters" - but if you don't remember how to proceed, you won't find them. Something to scroll through would be fine. This is really problematic already for admins in the backend of xf1.5. I always hoped to oversee a solution...

 

[Jake B.]

IMO if the "Find member" block functioned more as a search than a type in the username and get taken directly to the profile it'd be much better, as it stands there isn't a way that I can find on the frontend to actually search for a user

 

[RobinHood]

This has just become an issue for me again. Just built a site for someone and they can't comprehend how searching a correct portion of someone's username returns no results.

Most users on this site will have first name last name usernames, so front end member search really needs to be able to return partial matches.

Even without that, with weird usernames if you're trying to find someone, often it's because you can only remember part of their username and not all of it.

Seems mad that you're expected to only know a users full username to get a result, or at least the first few characters, which isn't always the case when trying to find someone.

 

[Chris D]

Seems mad that you're expected to only know a users full username to get a result, or at least the first few characters, which isn't always the case when trying to find someone.

Just to be clear: The member search results that appeared alongside search results in XF 1.x also required a prefix match. i.e. Robin would return RobinHood but Hood would not.

 

[RobinHood]

Fair play. Regardless of whether it worked in V1 or not. Would have hoped it would work in the current system in the memers find member section.

The inability to search for a user via partial match is super frustrating . Could the functionality behind the partial match in the ACP perhaps be repurposed to the member's section?