Add-On Releases - BoardTracker Search Mod v2 - a full search engine for your board!

BoardTracker Search Mod - Version 2

This search hack replaces the built in vb search with boardtracker search and results are fully integrated with your board. Search results can be threads from your board or all boards or a select group of boards - your choice!

Once installed, search from the search box on any page will pull results from boardtracker and display them within your board. 'Advanced Search' can still link to the existing vb search script or you can disable or restrict access to specific users (ie. admins, mods, paying members etc).

Results can be formated in any way you want with some simple template variables.

Options control panel allows you to easily switch the boardtracker search mod on or off so you can switch between boardtracker and vb search whenever you want.

The following configuration options/defaults exist:

Switch search on/off

Switch 'safe filter' on/off

Switch global search option on/off

Board ID - you can limit search to just your board, or several boards you choose or ALL boards indexed by boardtracker.

Category ID - you can define a category on boardtracker and searches will only pull results from that category.

Default Sort Order - you can sort results by relevancy or by post date.

Default Search Scope - results can be limited to last day, week, month, year or all time.

Default Search Query - a search term that will be executed whenever the boardtracker search script is called directly with no params.

Find Posts By User - replace the search links on user profiles and postbits.

Internal vB Search Allowed Usergroups - specify which usergroups are allowed to still use the built in vb search (search.php) and redirect all others to the bt search (searchbt.php). Leave empty to allow all users to still access search.php


User selections on the search form override the defaults.

The mod is very easy to install and consists of 1 php script to upload, 1 product xml file to install, 1 simple template edit plus some optional template edits. The xml product file creates one new template, an options panel and a few phrases.

You can see a demo here which has the search set to another board for demo purposes (since there are no actual posts on the demo board to search )

If your board is not yet indexed by BoardTracker, make sure to submit it!


## New features in version 2..

Search posts by username
Search in specific forums
Search in related forums
Search by boardtracker category
RSS feed and alerts for searches
Global search option
Works with bad words search filter
Block or restrict the built in search to specific usergroups
More integration with vb search links (such as from member profile)
More widgets in the control panel to play with



updates:
v2.0.1 - fixed small typo in one phrase setting
v2.0.2 - fixed bug in searchbt.php affecting some people. To upgrade, just upload the new searchbt.php, no other action required.
v2.0.3 - minor html change in templates - not a required upgrade
v2.0.4 - update to searchbt.php
v2.0.5 - small change to 'stopwords' in search_boardtracker template
v2.0.6 - added adv=1 to advanced search link (in plugin) to open search options automatically. Simplified navbar template edits (needed if installing tags mod also). Added 'search this forum' edits.
v2.0.7 - updated for new BoardTracker 2010. To upgrade, upload searchbt.php, install xml, minor template edits (param names)

[dannylin3000]

was curious - what is the difference between BoardTracker and vB built-in one?

[BoardTracker]

There are several significant differences..

All the search processing and indexing is done on boardtracker servers which removes a lot of load from your servers.

There are none of the forced limits that vb search has such the not allowing searches with 3 characters or less, having to wait 30 seconds between searches, etc.

You can if you choose include results from multiple boards in your search - for example if you run several boards you can circulate traffic between them or you can set up traffic trades with other board admins and include each others results in your boards search.

You can also enable 'global search' as an option for your users - this puts a checkbox on the search page so users can perform the search on all boards in boardtracker - why send them to google to search when you can keep it all within the 'boardscape'.

You can also if you want have both search systems active - default search (from the little dropdown search box) can use BT search while 'advanced search' can still link to the built in vb search.

You can also define usergroups who can still use the vb search (mods/admins for example or perhaps paying members) while everyone else uses the BT search.

[SemperFideles]

Originally Posted by dannylin3000

was curious - what is the difference between BoardTracker and vB built-in one?

I think the real answer is this: you can actually use the built-in search option from vBulletin.

This has got to be the longest "...we're completing upgrades and about to add boards soon..." promise. I half expect folks not to answer the posts on this.

Look at the date that I first asked about this mod: Dec 06. That's 6 months ago.

I wouldn't trust your board to a service this unprofessional. Professional services give release dates vice ambiguous "...we'll be adding you at any time...." I wouldn't trust important data to them either.

[BoardTracker]

Originally Posted by SemperFideles

I think the real answer is this: you can actually use the built-in search option from vBulletin.

This has got to be the longest "...we're completing upgrades and about to add boards soon..." promise. I half expect folks not to answer the posts on this.

Look at the date that I first asked about this mod: Dec 06. That's 6 months ago.

I wouldn't trust your board to a service this unprofessional. Professional services give release dates vice ambiguous "...we'll be adding you at any time...." I wouldn't trust important data to them either.

The fact is the service has been running fine for years and those boards using this mod have had no problems and continue to use it and benefit in the form of greatly reduced server loads.

Does google give you any guarantees about when or even if they will index your site? They do not. They will index your site when they get to it if you are lucky. They also dont generally give any specific dates when new features will be ready.. until they are ready. And when was windows 2000 released? or office 2003? ...

The new system we have been relentlessly working on for over six months now, will be ready when it is ready and not before. Would you prefer a 'rushed out the door' system that hasn't been tested properly and could be unstable or would you prefer to rely on a system that has been developed properly and tested thoroughly?

Believe us, noone is more eager to see the new version out than us. But as much as we'd like to get it finished sooner, not everything is under our control and external issues have caused some significant delays. However, Rome wasn't built in a day and the new version of BoardTracker wont be either but it will be ready quite soon and is in fact being tested privately on some boards right now. We are actually indexing millions of posts a day into the new system at the moment and already have several times more forums covered than the current version. When we are confident that it is 'ready for action' we will release it fully and any boards in the submission queue will be indexed shortly after. Our goal in life is indexing all the discussions in all the boards out there, especially those that unfortunately had to wait.

Regardless, this mod is for the current version of BT and any boards already indexed can use it right now (if your board is already indexed) with no problems. It can be used to replace the vb search fully or it can complement the vb search so users have access to both to suit their needs.

[puertoblack2003]

i need some assistance i found something with your script that my forum thread tool won't work unless i remove it form navbar template can you fix it please it was confirmed from another coder.

this is your instructions to add in the navbar template:

OPEN: 'Navigation / Breadcrumb Templates >> navbar'

==============================

FIND:

<form action="search.php?do=process" method="post">
<table cellpadding="4" cellspacing="1" border="0">
<tr>
<td class="thead">$vbphrase[search_forums]</td>
</tr>

==============================

BELOW ADD:

<!-- start bt search mod -->
<if condition="$vboptions['boardtracker_search_active']">
</form>
<form action="searchbt.php" method="get">
<tr>
<td class="vbmenu_option" title="nohilite">
<input type="hidden" name="s"
value="$session[sessionhash]" />
<div><input type="text" class="bginput"
name="search" size="25" tabindex="1001" /><input type="submit" class="button"
value="$vbphrase[go]" tabindex="1004" /></div>
</td>
</tr>
<else />
<!-- end bt search mod -->

==============================

after i added this here:

<!-- start bt search mod -->
<if condition="$vboptions['boardtracker_search_active']">
</form>
<form action="searchbt.php" method="get">
<tr>
<td class="vbmenu_option" title="nohilite">
<input type="hidden" name="s"
value="$session[sessionhash]" />
<div><input type="text" class="bginput"
name="search" size="25" tabindex="1001" /><input type="submit" class="button"
value="$vbphrase[go]" tabindex="1004" /></div>
</form>
</td>
</tr>
<else />
<!-- end bt search mod -->

I'm not a coder but when i added that <form>so you can see it in bold, I'm able to open my thread tool in the thread.But when you log out the the whole navbar has disappear and can you fix it so I'm able to open my thread tool.


thank you


side note: can you activated account for my partner at smartphonejunkie.com ....

[BoardTracker]

We'll be releasing a new version of this mod in the next few days for vb3.6.7 anyway so maybe that will fix the problem you are having.

If you don't have vb3.6.7 then let me know which version of vb and which version of this mod you have.

[puertoblack2003]

Originally Posted by BoardTracker

We'll be releasing a new version of this mod in the next few days for vb3.6.7 anyway so maybe that will fix the problem you are having.

If you don't have vb3.6.7 then let me know which version of vb and which version of this mod you have.

thanks for your response i do have 3.6.7 but it was happening before on the previous version 3.6.4

thanks looking forward to new version

[rjmjr69]

Awesome new version I love it..... Can not wait

[puertoblack2003]

any updates to the hack yet I'm still having problem with the issue on the above post and would hate to uninstall it.Can you do something to resolve my issue ..


Thanks

[RedGTiVR6]

wow - really glad I didn't wait around for this.