The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #174205   Message #4225932
Posted By: Joe Offer
19-Jul-25 - 11:55 PM
Thread Name: Search functionality - new member difficulty
Subject: RE: Search functionality - new member difficulty
The search engine I use most at Mudcat is the Filter, which is right at the top of the list of threads. The "age" box on the filter is annoying to me - I almost always set it to "ALL" to search through all the threads. I put one word or phrase from the subject in the box, and refresh. For "Mule Skinner Blues," I put mule or skinner, but not "muleskinner." If I get too many results, I use CTRL-F on the results to find what I need. This two-stage method of searching works well with many search engines - do a broad search, and then use CTRL-F on the results to narrow it down

Over almost thirty years now, I've been trying to make searching easier for users by changing titles of threads and messages. Thread titles are fairly well standardized, and message with lyrics have ADD and the song title. Use the Filter to find threads, and the Old Advanced Forum Search (in Quick Links) to search message titles.