Apply "Advanced Search" options to "My LQ" searches
 

It would be a “nice to have” if the “My LQ” searches would apply the options specified in under “Advanced Search” to the implied searches attached to the various “My” items.

Specifically, the “My Posts” item ignores the “Present results as threads” setting.

Good idea! I HATE it when somone replies with "Use the search"...but yet the search finds nothing relevant...an Advanced Search would be a great way for somone to find exactly what they are looking for...

Instead of clicking "My Posts", why don't you click "My Threads"? Of course, both of these searches will only bring up your own posts and threads as that is what they are designed for.

The normal Search function, and there are advanced functions in there, is probably what you are both after.

LQ's advanced search function works pretty good, but if you need multiple search terms, it can be a bit flaky.

In those cases do a regular google search like this:

If you select "My Posts" then you will obviously get the results as posts. If you want a list of threads you have posted in then simply put your user name in the "Search by username" box and ensure that the "show results as threads" box is checked.

david_ross is correct. The "My Posts" link is a specific bit of functionality that should ignore the "results as threads” setting.

--jeremy

Dagnabbit - that's what I said. And I was first!! :)

Well, that would work if I wanted to see my threads, but what I’d like to see is my posts presented as the threads to which the post was made. I can get the desired result by going to “Advanced Search” and searching for my user id since I opted for search results to be presented by thread.

What I was suggesting was only that the “My Posts” search should honor the presentation option selected in the “Advanced Search” page.

And why is that, Jeremy? It sounds like you deliberately chose to ignore the option, so, if it was deliberate, could you tell us what the reasoning was? Obviously, since my desired result can be achieved by using the search function, the implementation can’t be too hard.

Ray, my apologizes - you're correct :)

PTrenholme, that functionality is built into the boards, it wasn't a design decision by us.

--jeremy

OK, I'll just set up a Firefox macro to do the search for me. But it would still be a "nice to have," so why not pass the suggestion on to the board maintainers?

Since both of the board maintainers have been in this thread, they know about your suggestion now :) What you are after is a feature request reporting mechanism, I think.

I think you may have misunderstood my comment. I was noting that Jeremy said that the “My Posts” item was a feature of the board suppliers, from which I, reasonably, I think, concluded that the whole site was using someone’s “board” software. I, therefore, suggested that Jeremy contact the suppliers of that software.

Your reply, if you did correctly understand my suggestion, implies that the moderators are also the software maintainers. If that’s the case, then, yes, a “New features” sub-forum might be appropriate.

While we use a standard system for some parts of the site, we have heavily customized it and are always willing to add features based on demand.

--jeremy

Jeremy and David_Ross tend to do any work on the software. My response was a bit tongue in cheek, if you follow the link to the bug reporting pages, you will se that you can click the drop down to change it to feature request.

Good enough, but I don't think I'll bother since the macro works just fine. (That the iMacros extension for Firefox that I'm using, if anyone reading this thread is interested.)

Just for clarity, the two methods described my myself and XavierP will actually produce different results (but lets not quarrel on who was first ;))

My Posts: A list of your posts as they occur in any thread. This should not be confused with any type of search - it is simply a list of your posts.

My Threads: A list of the threads that your started. This should not be confused with any type of search - it is simply a list of the threads that you started.

Searches...
For specific searches you need to use the search mechanism. Providing clickable links for every type of search would just take too much real estate, hence the reason for a form.

To create your link/bookmark you can specify parameters on the url:
http://www.linuxquestions.org/questi...ser=PTrenholme

That should give you the behaviour of "Show a list of threads I posted in" which I believe is what you wanted (note that this is not the same as either of the 2 links described above).

If we are going to provide any additional sort of facility I think a perma link like the one above shown on the search results page would be more useful.

That clarification is much better than mine - thanks David. BTW, Happy Birthday!

--jeremy

David, just to quibble, any "list of" is, ipso facto, the result of a search. (If your data base is indexed by userid, the search may be fast, but you still need to retrieve the records.) If you've implemented it in any other way, you've unnecessarily duplicated code and built in both a maintenance headache and possible source of inconsistent results.

On the other hand, your bookmark suggestion should work well, although (since nobody who knows the system has had the time) the lack of documentation of the search functionality presents some barrier to creating such links for most users. (That's just a dig re a prior suggestion I made for a "How to Search on LQ" entry.)

On the gripping hand, learning the IMacros for FireFox stuff is potentially useful for other sites in addition to LQ, so I'll probably stick with that solution.

Looking at it from a UI point of view, having text that says "My Posts" that returns a list of threads (a list that may not even show your username given that the list only shows the thread starter and last poster) would be confusing to more users than it would help.

From a coding point of view, it does reuse a lot of the search code but it is designed to use a fixed list of parameters that users cannot change, the search form exists for such ad-hoc queries.

I agree that finding/making the links isn't that easy but showing a link on the results page that people could bookmark is something that is probably relatively easy for us to implement.

I agree (I *was* first though :))

Thanks for the explanation - and happy birthday mate :D

Ah, I was looking more at the "My threads" suggestion not the advnaced search bit you said - missed that ;)

Cheers! /me tips his JDs in a southerly direction (I love it when you get a double meaning like that).

Just a note that we will be adding the ability to permalink to a search to the next release of the code, which will also contain a variety of other fixes and updates. Thanks for the feedback.

--jeremy