Auto-search/suggestions for forum posts

CB · May 1, 2009

Some job ticket systems do an automatic search when new posts are added, to suggest previously-created answers before submitting the post. I don't know if Vanilla has a plugin to do something similar, but if so it might be worth you putting in, and having it search the forums, current known issues page, and maybe Trac. I notice an awful lot of reposting of the same old questions, and such a thing might save those who are "answerers" here (you know who you are) a bit of time.

andrei · June 19, 2009

Totally support CB.

For example, forums.dklab.ru experience tremendous amount of repeating posts, so they had to put:
1) search boxes in every corner of their pages.
2) topic suggestions for 'add post' form using keywords which user types in the post title and the post text.
3) and even short quiz to filter people who cannot formulate questions in correct way :)

Their search works without reloading current page, which really helps to find a correct topic posted earlier.

It is not always so easy to find a topic with exactly my question, especially if I don't know for sure if it exists. I hope zotero.org will have something like that soon. Thanks

CB · July 21, 2009

I've had a bit of a search through the vanilla's plugin list , but haven't come across anything yet.

dstillman · July 21, 2009

The kind of thing you're describing would seem to be rather difficult to implement. Much stronger encouragement to search before posting, with some copy on the "Start a new discussion" page and perhaps an inline search frame, would probably help, though.

There's also a LiveSearch plugin that might be useful, though I haven't seen it in action.

It'd probably also help to combine the Topics and Comments modes of the search.

CB · July 21, 2009

It would be difficult, and I wasn't suggesting that you spend development time on it. I was rather hoping there might be something available off-the-shelf, but it appears not.

Some prompting on the 'start a new discussion' page, accompanied by a prominent forum search form and links to the FAQ and other documentation, might help.