The search sucks

If you search on it…games/comment/player/and forum posts show up, and the games are usually scattered in between,making it hard to fin the right game. Why haven’t they made the search engine more advanced?

Uhh, they did. They give you “Is this what you mean?” hits now, so don’t complain ;P

When you type something in the search bar, it will produce a drop-down box usually consisting of games containing the keyword you typed in. :) Just got to let it sit for a few seconds.

You can always put * on what you are are specifically searching for. But I do think the search bar needs to have filters such as, Art, Music, Forums, Games, etc.

User’s profile
What you type: {user’s name} profile on Kongregate

Game
What you type: Part of the game/the whole game name —> Zshadow already explained this.

Forum
What you type: {thread’s name} discussion on Kongregate.

It’s easy. :)

Originally posted by shittasticf:

So now the five of us in this thread know that trick, what about the 30,000 other people playing now who have to figure it out for themselves? You can get more specific searches using google as well, but the presence of obscure work arounds is no excuse for having the functionality missing in the first place.

You can help around in chat posting this thread’s link. (of course, you won’t help everyone, as there are soo many people on Kong, but you’ll at least help some.) Plus, every person who uses the Search bar frequently knows the trick.

Originally posted by xxXPsychoFadeXxx:

Originally posted by shittasticf:

So now the five of us in this thread know that trick, what about the 30,000 other people playing now who have to figure it out for themselves? You can get more specific searches using google as well, but the presence of obscure work arounds is no excuse for having the functionality missing in the first place.

You can help around in chat posting this thread’s link. (of course, you won’t help everyone, as there are soo many people on Kong, but you’ll at least help some.) Plus, every person who uses the Search bar frequently knows the trick.

Couldn’t someone just make a more official thread for the search bar?

Originally posted by shittasticf:

Couldn’t someone just fix the search bar?

Seriously, do you believe this is so important? I guess you can waste 2 more minutes of your life to find something with the current Search bar. I don’t think it’s so difficult to use to be honest.

Originally posted by shittasticf:

I wouldn’t say important, it just honestly astounds me that after 3 years they still have the most basic search possible. It’s been suggested often enough, but even when someone was working on the search and implementing the auto-suggestions they didn’t think to put this in. You obviously think it important enough to defend.

Kongregate is a gaming site. It does have the designated search bar for its kind of site. I agree, that the bar could be more useful, and with more features, but this is not their first priority, even if it’s actually so important.

They’re not being paid to change it, it won’t change.

I don’t see what is wrong with the current search bar. I don’t use it much, true, but it is quite well designed. It is definitely more effective now than before. The search bar has been updated, not too long ago IIRC, so I doubt an update, if any, in the near future.

I find the search more than sufficient for my needs. As this is a game site, the recent addition of the game name drop-down menu was perfect for it, and helps speed the process of searching for games a great deal. Often, you don’t even need to run the search formally, you can just find it in the drop-down list.

It is true, there could be a variety of other features, but they aren’t essential: as has been already pointed it, it is pretty simple to find anything being searched for if you know how to ask the question.

On the note of the changelog, many of the aesthetic changes are, no doubt, incredibly easy fixes, whereas updating the entire way the search functions and including a variety of options would take a great deal more time/effort than you seem to be implying with that comparison. Additionally, some of the things on that changelog section you posted *are* quite significant. Specifically, the change in maximum game width, which means Developers now have more space to work with, updating the bug report system makes it more versatile, and game specific forums were quite a major change from how the forums were organized beforehand – They are the precursor to a possible plethora of new sub-forums.

I’m sure it will eventually be updated, but in the meanwhile, I’m happy to hear they’re working on other useful major updates, like the Badge page overhaul we just experienced, the inclusion of Quests/medals, and the mentioned profile page redesign that might happen at some point.

When you type something in the search bar, it will produce a drop-down box usually consisting of games containing the keyword you typed in.

And, if you hover your mouse after the box is active on either of links it has provided, you can quickly search that specific game you were looking for by hitting Enter.

Yes, yes searching for games is lovely. No ones complaining about searching for games. However, what if I wanted to search the suggestions thread to see the number of times someones mentioned running a contest? What if I wanted to search for all the pictures in the collabs with a whale in them? What if I want to search only the Technical Help forum for a problem, and I want the results in reverse chronological order so I don’t get all the old outdated posts? Every other forum/image host offers this. Why not leave the main search as is it, but give the forums and collab their own search bar? Then the normal users don’t have to be exposed to the forums and we all get something useful. I’m no web dev, but I’m guessing forum searches is a pretty well covered topic and that they could pretty much copy and paste something in if they wanted to. Seriously, how much would it cost me to sponser you to do this?

what if I wanted to search the suggestions thread to see the number of times someones mentioned running a contest? What if I wanted to search for all the pictures in the collabs with a whale in them? What if I want to search only the Technical Help forum for a problem, and I want the results in reverse chronological order so I don’t get all the old outdated posts?

If you check one of my posts, you can see that I explain how to do that forum search. Anyway, follow the instructions below.

User’s profile

What you type: {user’s name} profile on Kongregate

Game

What you type: Part of the game/the whole game name —> Zshadow already explained this.

Forum

What you type: {thread’s name} discussion on Kongregate.

It’s pretty easy, actually. :)

EDIT: I talked to EndlessSproradic, and he created a guide. (that’s for you, BlackBone ;)) http://www.kongregate.com/forums/1-kongregate/topics/63762-es-razzi-tutorials-using-the-search-bar

Originally posted by xxXPsychoFadeXxx:

what if I wanted to search the suggestions thread to see the number of times someones mentioned running a contest? What if I wanted to search for all the pictures in the collabs with a whale in them? What if I want to search only the Technical Help forum for a problem, and I want the results in reverse chronological order so I don’t get all the old outdated posts?

If you check one of my posts, you can see that I explain how to do that forum search. Anyway, follow the instructions below.

User’s profile

What you type: {user’s name} profile on Kongregate

Game

What you type: Part of the game/the whole game name —> Zshadow already explained this.

Forum

What you type: {thread’s name} discussion on Kongregate.

It’s pretty easy, actually. :)

EDIT: I talked to EndlessSproradic, and he created a guide. (that’s for you, BlackBone ;)) http://www.kongregate.com/forums/1-kongregate/topics/63762-es-razzi-tutorials-using-the-search-bar

You’re welcome, that is kind of what I was getting at! ;D

Awesome. The new ES’s guide is very helpul.

Originally posted by xxXPsychoFadeXxx:

Awesome. The new ES’s guide is very helpul.

True but look at the TUTORIAL DIRECTORY.

Jesus Christ. If you have to write a tutorial (including videos?!?!) to tell your users how to use the search bar you know something is seriously wrong. Not only that, but it doesn’t answer any of my original questions. Tell me how I search only the suggestions thread, results in reverse chronological order, for any mention of the shootorials?

Originally posted by SuperMarioJump:

Jesus Christ. If you have to write a tutorial (including videos?!?!) to tell your users how to use the search bar you know something is seriously wrong. Not only that, but it doesn’t answer any of my original questions. Tell me how I search only the suggestions thread, results in reverse chronological order, for any mention of the shootorials?

Why the hell would you want to search such a complicated thing?

My motives are none of your concern and completely beside the point. I’ll indulge you however, perhaps I was wanting to suggest that the shootorials were updated, and out of curiosity I wanted to know how many other people were also suggesting this. I may also want to know how recently it was last suggested in case a reply was made explaining why it will or will not be happening.
If you want a more real life example, what if I was looking for someone to collaberate with on a game? I’m looking someone who makes trance music, how do I search only the music section of the collabs for all music tagged with “trance” sorted by highest rating? This is the greatest tragedy of the lack of dedicated search, it’s turned what could have been a highly productive place for finding talent for your game into an abandoned image host.

Originally posted by DeathCrunch:

They’re not being paid to change it, it won’t change.

Yea they are. Ad Revenue. If you find what you wanna find, it’ll decrease the amount of time it takes to load up a differant page, if that happens, you will have more time to click on another game, on which ads are showed = money.

Tell me how I search only the suggestions thread

:: Facepalm :: How are you going to search a thread when you actually have no titles to identify every post? In my opinion, you’re just claiming silly things in order to not lose the arguement.

For one more time, search with what you have. At least try to find some tricks of your own to help you search. The search bar is not Kongregate’s first priority as it has already been updated.

how do I search only the music section of the collabs for all music tagged with “trance”

Search for “trance”…

If you want a more real life example, what if I was looking for someone to collaberate with on a game?

Contact a well-known developer.

You could find everything you want without trouble if you focused on learning the search bar as it is, instead of making invalid claims with obvious answers. Thanks.

I’m not sure why you’re trying to restart a week old argument but here we go.

How are you going to search a thread when you actually have no titles to identify every post?

I don’t know what you are saying here. You don’t need the posts to have titles. You’re going to have to clarify yourself here.

Search for “trance”…

Either absolutely no one uses the tags or the search doesn’t bother looking at them. That search will return only songs with trance in the title, which is a small percentage of all the actual trance songs on the site.

Contact a well-known developer.

I don’t want a developer, I want an artist. How do I find one with the style I’m looking for? I’ll search the collabs and… oh wait. I can’t. There’s an artist using the exact watercolour style I need, but he’s called his picture “Morning Drive” and even though he’s tagged his picture with appropriate keywords, the search doesn’t look at them.