Hi folks,
I just finished re-working the old forum search plug-ins for both Astahost and Trap17. They're now recoded in the OpenSearch XML format and hence, compatible with both Firefox & IE7.

For those who don't know, we've a set of search plug-ins that can be installed in the Quick Search box in Firefox to quickly search the forums with specific keywords, without visiting the forum search page at all.

The plug-ins can be installed from: http://plugins.astahost.com

Included in the new version is Autodiscovery mode, which allows your browser to automatically discover the plugin once you visit the plug-ins page. The plug-in is auto-listed in the drop-down menu in the quick-search box and gets installed rightaway when you click on it.

Something that might make an interesting read --> A tutorial I wrote on designing such plugins.

Any problems with the plugins, do let me know...

Well the only problem I see is the IPB search function is weak, to the point you really need to get lucky in what your looking for in first few results of your searches.

I think it is possible to alter the search set up, to allow more words inside the search query, this should be looked into and should see what comes up.

Other then that good job as always M^E.

yup, good job.
Worked first time I tried it.
Saves having to sign-on to seek some information on the Trap.

Yup - I know what you mean. I'm trying to figure out if the Advanced Search functions can somehow me incorporated into this. As of now, I know how to limit the number of returned results and number of results per page - but that won't serve the purpose as such. The main problem lies with the fact that you can enter ONLY keywords in the search box and cannot specify any other parameters...if only there was a mechanism for doing that !!

wait so the search engine is based off of key words that the forum makes through it's posts then? I assume that you tried to strip out the search function altogether then? Then on that assumption the board error out because the search function relies on the posts.

I know I seen a google mod for IPB but of course that went to the google page and showed the results. I think their was a mod for 2.0.x that tweak the original search in such a way that you could get more accurate, might have to look it up and toss it your way and see if something could be made out of it.

I know a lot of people have complained about it, but I don't know if a discussion has been made at invision board main site.

Oh good job there! I have downloaded it, but I don't really use the search feature a lot really, so I haven't found a job for it because of this.

I would like to congratulate you on making this, and hopefully Invision Services will make the search feature a bit more powerfull.

Have a great day!