completed Still struggling with Search option in the JamRoom Forum

Upfront FYI: I have wanted to add this post since my first time visiting this awesome support forum.
I have found gems, many, but mostly after spending 7+ hours skimming through and making bookmarked lists of those to return to.
Time after time, I try to find something relevant (or try to revisit something I know I have read before, and 'waste' valuable time doing so.

We're on a mission, and we want to make JamRoom work for us, and work well for us.
But I can't find things!

Tonight I searched and found these two relevant posts, now closed:https://www.jamroom.net/the-jamroom-network/forum/suggestions/22834/search-order-by-relevence/search_string=search
and
https://www.jamroom.net/the-jamroom-network/forum/suggestions/1884/finding-things-and-communicating/search_string=search

and this note: "livesearch would have helped with that. Or maybe tagging the items with multiple keywords/search terms. I knew I could go and find it from my dev site's marketplace, but internet is slow tonight so I looked for the quick fix from the mothership - search the storefront listing for a module to do the job."

and this note:

But! I don't see any tags!

Where can I find tags? I don't see the option to add tags to the posts I'm adding (like this one).
How can we add tags?

tags would be a beautiful solution... and I want to take advantage of this beautiful solution.

Disclaimer: This may simply be 'my' problem and some dumb thing I'm not seeing, some trick I don't know?
But I would love an answer (and maybe I'm not alone in this challenge?)

I would love to be able to tag posts I find in the support forum with words that make sense to me (so I can find them again as needed).

Thanks in advance,
Holly
updated by @holly-dilatush: 02/15/17 08:53:12AM

Hi Holly, I can't help you with tags for the Jamroom forum but I wanted to thank you for this post. You highlighted a setting that needed to be changed on my own site to allow tagging in the Forum: I had to go into the Quota Config for the Item Tags module and give my Community quota (the one for the profile that houses my Forum) permission to add tags. Now a Tags box shows at the bottom of every Forum topic, and I and my site users will be able to tag our discussions. Thank you for giving me the impetus to fix this! I know it hasn't solved your problem, but I wanted to express my gratitude. Thanks!

You want to add tags to pages like this one here? What tags would you add to this page?

Guess we could turn that on for everyone, see how it goes.

Tags are here on this page, just not visible to everyone.

Yes, an option so that all members could add tags.
But you wrote, "just not visible to everyone"?

Why not visible to everyone? Individuals don't always think of the same key words.

It was relatively easy to find the appropriate discussions for the topic 'search', but it's not so easy when one is hunting, for example, something for my time zone issue ( https://www.jamroom.net/the-jamroom-network/forum/new_posts/43557/events-setting-time-options-for-gmt-0-not-london-predicament-international-rsvpers)

I searched several words and purposely tried to include many of them in my klunky title.
If tags were in place, I would have titled my post "Events / Calendars: wrong times posting" or at least something shorter than what I used, and then would have tagged the heck out of it, so someone else would find it on a search.

Tags would have included: Events, Calendar, time zones, GMT, UTC,

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As for tags to this discussion, I would have added: search. Sometimes it's simple.

Other things I've searched for by 'simpler key words' have sent me to 10+ pages of results to sift through, but when I've tried to enter more specific search terms, I get the 'nothing found' even when I know that a discussion exists! Very frustrating.

Hope this helps, or that someone else can find better words to explain.

Thanks,

because some users spam.

and we will need to weigh the cost vs value of having to delete mysite.com tags vs valid users posting useful stuff.

hmmm.... OK. I have not studied the tag system here well enough, I guess, because I do not understand all that you've written.
Hopefully before the day or weekend is over it will make mores sense to me.

Alternate idea that would be helpful (from my perspective -- and something I routinely do on the site I manage) would be to edit many of the existing forum posts' titles so that they match the way you tag. This would be more work for you, but would/could lead to happier search results for me.
[I search first with 'how I think' and then I try to search from 'putting myself in JamRoom Tech Support shoes... how might they think/name this', and of course coming from a Ning site, have lots of different terminology ingrained in my brain cells!]

I shall persevere.
Thanks for giving it some thought,
Holly

Sorry, but I'm back again. Maybe I just need a lesson in how to search here?

I just tried to search the word "search" (to find this discussion), and saw 46 pages of results! and not the one I added.

I searched "can't find" and this discussion was at the top!

But! How many people are going to try searching "search" first? and then (logical to me) would be "search help" but that search yields only ONE result:
https://www.jamroom.net/the-jamroom-network/forum/20022/changing-default-image-sizes-in-home-page-galleries-profiles/search_string=search+help

This is an ideal example of how I'm getting frustrated in my searches.

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Another example. I tried a few minutes ago to search for a challenge we're having with tags

So I tried "tag" (1/50 pages... not helpful).

So I tried "tags" and luckily see two possible posts that may lead me to the answer I'm looking for, BUT also see "1 of 34 pages" for "tags" search result... and my mind wonders, "Is there a better answer on the other 33 pages of results? Am I really supposed to scroll through more and more pages for a better match?"

So I refine and try "tags separated by comma" and got no results.

Do I now have to go back and search all 34 pages of tags to see if I can find a post that explains how we might improve the tag entry system so that we don't have to type a tag, click to add, type another tag, click to add, type another tag, click to add... but instead could

type a tag, tag, tag, tag, (separated by commas) and click "add tags" ONCE.

[This is what I'm trying to find, and very frustrated, close to disgruntled/aggravated (and not wanting to be) that I can't find my way to it right away.]

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I hope these more specific examples will help you help me (and/or that other forum members share ideas/tips on how to find things more readily in this forum.

Thank you,
Holly

An embarrassing announcement: I've JUST now noticed that you have tabs for "newest posts" and "my posts."

[These are/will be helpful.]

You offered up the suggestion: "Hey Jamroom, why not just let anybody who comes along add tags to your forum pages" I replied with "Because then we might have to deal with users who write spam tags."

Its a suggestion, we're thinking about it.
updated by @michael: 09/16/16 06:43:11PM

Here's a search tip though, you can search any site with google. Our fourms here are on the URL:

So to just search that with google you can use the site: syntax, so if you want to search just here for 'search' then at google type:

or whatever other search terms you wanted to use , 'tags'
and you will just get results from these forums.

Yes. And once I got out of this haze of 'working too hard, too long, too intensely to get our Ning site to JamRoom ASAP', I would have remembered that obvious "site:" tip. [Confession: I use it often! So why didn't I think of that?]

Thanks.

These instructions regarding search terms appear in my Dashboard search box. Do they apply to all search boxes in the JR system, and equally importantly, what do they mean? Every line in this note is cryptic to me. First of all, what is an "item" in this context, and what is an "item key"?

Item Search Options:
value - Search for exact value match.
%value - Search for items that end in value.
value% - Search for items that begin with value.
%value% - Search for items that contain value.

Item Key Search Options:
key:value - Search for specific key with exact value match.
key:%value - Search for specific key that begins with value.
key:value% - Search for specific key that ends with value.
key:%value% - Search for specific key that contains value.


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PJ Matthews, Kyoto
Migrated from Ning 2.0. Now at Jamroom 6 beta and using Jamroom Hosting for The Research Cooperative (researchcooperative.org)

An item is a datastore item. Every module that has a datastore has items.

A value is a stored thing, a key is the location its stored so if you had a song that had a title "Girlfriend in a Coma" that would be stored

audio_title = "Girlfriend in a coma"

The audio_title is the key, "girlfriend in a coma" is the value and the item is everything related to that song.

so if you searched for:
That would get you that item returned. or
That would get you that item returned. or
That would get you that item returned.

Visitors to our site will not know the keys used in our system, but can they use the search syntax in any search field they come across? i.e. these four options:

(1) value - Search for exact value match.
(2) %value - Search for items that end in value.
(3) value% - Search for items that begin with value.
(4) %value% - Search for items that contain value.

And can they search for more than one value at the same time? What is the syntax for multiple keyword searching?


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PJ Matthews, Kyoto
Migrated from Ning 2.0. Now at Jamroom 6 beta and using Jamroom Hosting for The Research Cooperative (researchcooperative.org)

Your visitors can't access your dashboard and can't search the keys in your database.


--
¯\_(ツ)_/¯ Education, learning resources, TEL, AR/VR/MR, CC licensed content, panoramas, interactive narrative, sectional modules (like jrDocs), lunch at Uni of Bristol. Get in touch if you share my current interests or can suggest better :)

I know they can't access the dashboard and keys, but I am wondering if similar syntax (not for keys) can be used in search fields everywhere in a JR site.

So far I have not found any general instructions on syntax for search terms that are put in search fields singly or together with other terms.


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PJ Matthews, Kyoto
Migrated from Ning 2.0. Now at Jamroom 6 beta and using Jamroom Hosting for The Research Cooperative (researchcooperative.org)

Google's a great way to find information about whatever you want. Understandably it's a more sophisticated search than Jamroom search can ever be.

You can also use site:https://www.jamroom.net in your google search which will return results from the docs in addition to forum results. And, of course, you can use other google modifiers in your search terms if you want to refine your results further.


--
¯\_(ツ)_/¯ Education, learning resources, TEL, AR/VR/MR, CC licensed content, panoramas, interactive narrative, sectional modules (like jrDocs), lunch at Uni of Bristol. Get in touch if you share my current interests or can suggest better :)
updated by @ultrajam: 10/18/16 01:02:32PM

I know this is an old post, but wanted to point out that the Jamroom search supports "OR" and "AND" searches - i.e. search for both "jrForum OR jrMarket"

https://www.jamroom.net/search/results/all/1/4?search_string=jrMarket+OR+jrForum

or "AND" - i.e. "glitch AND jamroom.net":

https://www.jamroom.net/search/results/all/1/4?search_string=glitch+AND+jamroom.net


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Brian Johnson
Founder and Lead Developer - Jamroom
https://www.jamroom.net

I've just enabled tagging for Jamroom Hosted users, so that will let our hosted users add tags to existing items while (hopefully) preventing any spam.

Let me know if you see any issues.


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Brian Johnson
Founder and Lead Developer - Jamroom
https://www.jamroom.net

Cool

We love "OR" and "AND" searches in the Library.


--
¯\_(ツ)_/¯ Education, learning resources, TEL, AR/VR/MR, CC licensed content, panoramas, interactive narrative, sectional modules (like jrDocs), lunch at Uni of Bristol. Get in touch if you share my current interests or can suggest better :)

I have played with this at my own site, and seems that the connecting words AND, OR, need to be written with capital letters.

Can we combine these connectors with more than two terms?

Thanks


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PJ Matthews, Kyoto
Migrated from Ning 2.0. Now at Jamroom 6 beta and using Jamroom Hosting for The Research Cooperative (researchcooperative.org)