Sort options for search results

[Grover]

What I like about both vBulletin and Invision Power Board is that they provide the enduser with:

Sort options for your search results.

So, the moment you perform a search, for example a quick search by typing a keyword in the search field in the top right corner, you get the search results, and above the results list you are provided with options to sort the overview on several fields.

Comes in really handy in certain situations, but Xenforo does not provide any means at the moment to sort these search results.

I don't know what is technically possible, but maybe the [Thread Display Options] slide down option menu, which works great in the thread overviews, could be integrated in the Search results as well.

 

[cellarius]

I very much agree.

 

[Ludachris]

The Search feature is a tool that is heavily used on our site (and in all forums I'd imagine) and we push the members to use it. But it does need some tweaks to make it more powerful, and sorting options would help that for sure. I would also like to display the the reply count, view count, like count. Those would also be good sorting criteria.

From what I've been told by a couple plugin developers, the Search portion of XF is the most underdeveloped part of the script, and is very limiting for developers. Hopefully it gets built out a little more with more robust functionality, especially when one of the main things forum veterans tell the noobs to do is "use the search". If it's not very effective or powerful it's not going to be used much.

 

[Gene]

I'll pile on here; this is probably the most frequently-requested feature from our users. I can't think of many sites with search functions that don't allow users to sort the results.

Even the simplest of options would be a huge improvement: Sort by relevance or date. Beyond that, additional sort/filter options would just be gravy.

 

[Donny]

I too agree that there are areas for improvement. The search facility in stock XF isn't up to much. If a thread is long and includes the word you're searching for in nearly every post, you're just linked to every post in that one thread and no other threads at all. That's rubbish.

Get somebody from Google in on this.

 

[alex2k5]

Going to bring this up again as well. Coming from vB recently and members are having some issues with search.

Our community has been working a certain way for a while, which shows one specific method that search is interrupting their normal (15 year+) flow.

Member posts a thread, lists items for Buy/Sell/Trade.

Continuously updates first post of thread, altering prices, availability, marking things as sold, in progress, on hold, etc.

When they do that, they "bump" the thread, legally. Usually by posting the word "Bump" as a reply.


Other members that frequent the BST area regularly will (did) do the following:

Search the BST sub-forum for a keyord (ipod).

In vBulletin - search results found "ipod" in post 1 of a members thread. That post was originally made in 2007 and has been updated ever since.

However, due to sorting options and defaults, it would return the thread that received a "bump" post today - first. iPod in post 1 (from 2007), reply today = first in result list.

Now, if you search for iPod in that sub-forum on Xenforo - it does return the thread with iPod in it, but the results show it last when sorted by date. Because post 1, the only one in thread with actual text in it, was made in 2007. Even tho a reply happened today.

This is one example where members would want to sort search results by thread's last reply date, after finding text in a post.

One way to address this specific situation, without adding in full sort by last thread reply date - allow "post edit time" to be considered in the date sorting for posts.

 

[siONtI]

Is possible to add a option to sort/filter search results by:

• Thread Creation date (Start date)
• Replies
• Views
• Last message(post)

 

[Steffen]

Our users have asked for the ability to easily change the sort order of search results after we switched from vBulletin. I know that you can click on the query title to go back to a pre-filled search form, change the sort order and re-submit the form but that requires some effort. Our own search engine for articles (living outside of XenForo) provides three links: Sort by a) Date b) Balanced c) Relevance. Something similar for XenForo would be cool!

 

[tonmo]

I'm surprised to find there's no option to sort by Thread creation date. I'm interested in browsing all new threads created across all forums by all users, regardless of last reply date. I feel like I'm missing something.

 

[Vekseid]

Several of my members have pointed out that Xenforo sorts thread results by when the thread was first posted, not when it was last replied to (as it does in MyBB). Having the option to do this would be helpful.