Sphinx Search

[boggseric]

Originally Posted by TechGuy

My point is that even if you can afford the $2k solution, it doesn't matter -- that solution doesn't exist.

Without reading through the entire thread, what's the status of using advanced search fields using the solution you mentioned earlier? (It was a long time ago when we last tried, but I remember we had to drop it because we couldn't sort by most of the fields.)

Sorting is definitely an issue. But from my forums perspective we had nothing to lose. The vBulletin search and MySQL search both brought our server to it's knees and frequently even crashed the server.

So we basically only had a few options:

Trim almost all of our posts and threads and put them in a different database. This seems like a good idea, but then you have to maintain two databases and do some trickery to not lose your total post count in your main forum. Then the users have to switch forums to search for something if they don't find it in the main forum. Large searches in the archive forum still eat up MySQL resources on the server and slow down the main forum.

Not allow searching at all. Not an option for us, we are a car tech forum and people MUST be able to search for data.

Continue with the vBulletin/Fulltext searches and just deal with the slow forum, crashes and angry users.

We chose sphinx, it may not be perfect but it's better than any option vBulletin has offered.

[ivanp]

boggseric, have you tried setting up Sphinx for vB4?

[boggseric]

Originally Posted by ivanp

boggseric, have you tried setting up Sphinx for vB4?

Nope, I don't have any intentions of heading in that direction. I'm sure it would take a pretty hefty rewrite of sphinx_search.php.

[Lizard King]

Originally Posted by TechGuy

My point is that even if you can afford the $2k solution, it doesn't matter -- that solution doesn't exist.

Without reading through the entire thread, what's the status of using advanced search fields using the solution you mentioned earlier? (It was a long time ago when we last tried, but I remember we had to drop it because we couldn't sort by most of the fields.)

If i am not mistaken searchlight does not have any sorting issues and several user i know confirmed that . the prices were high but they have a way more attractive pricese now compared to old prices.

[rsuplido]

Originally Posted by ivanp

boggseric, have you tried setting up Sphinx for vB4?

http://www.vbulletin.com/forum/showt...-vBulletin-4.0

[R-D]

I'm not even convinced the odd sorting is that much of a bad thing. It's actually rather logical and more relevant, if you think about it. For example, you have 3 threads and you're searching for the word "cheese":

Thread 1, a thread posted to on a daily basis - the word "cheese" was posted 1 year ago.
Thread 2, a thread posted to on a weekly basis - the word "cheese" was posted 1 month ago.
Thread 3, a thread posted to on a monthly basis - the word "cheese" was posted 1 week ago.

vBulletin search would likely show the threads in the order 1, 2, 3.
Sphinx would likely show the threads in the order 3, 2, 1.

On the face of it, thread 1 hasn't been about "cheese" for a year, despite it being regularly posted to. Wouldn't a searcher looking for "cheese" find either thread 2 or 3 more relevant?


I would suggest the sorting issue with Sphinx is more about people's expectations than any actual problems. The results of a search, even for more common words, might actually be more relevant in most cases.

Just something to think about.

[Mickie D]

is there a plugin that will work on the 3.7 version of vbulletin.

Cant keep up with this post even though I implemented it some years ago lol.

I looked at the vb4 version to see if there was a way of implementing this on lower versions of vb3 series but there is allot of changes you will need to make, and finding the time might be a problem.

Thanks.

Mickie

[ChopSuey]

I don't think they will downgrade the mod.

[Mickie D]

I have just been doing the original hack (from this post https://vborg.vbsupport.ru/showthrea...54#post2003154)

And I have had a nightmare adding a DATABASE PREFIX to the code lol.. taken me over 1 hour to code all the prefix's into it lol.

Anyway I have nearly got the original working with the latest sphinx, hopefully I can now get the plugins working.

Nearly there.

It would be great if they could add there advanced version (VB4) to the lower versions of vbulletin - at a guess from 3.6 - 3.8 would be almost identicle.

Where would we ask for this support anyway ?

Mickie

[ChopSuey]

Add to the lower versions? They have wayy better things to do.