Forum search tips and tricks

golinux · 2024-01-09 16:30:51

This forum is a treasure trove of information but what is the best way to access it? This thread is an exploration to discover if Devuan users have any special tips/tricks for drilling down specific searches using this forum's function or with 3rd party search engines. Would be nice to list them in an easily accessible format which would hopefully reduce the number of posts asking the same question(s). Let's see what you've got! If it comes up empty, that's a data point too.

soren · 2024-01-10 02:43:55

I haven't really used the forum search function that much, but the times i have used it was ok. But in regards to 3rd party search engines, the duck (duckduckgo) is pretty good and a bit more comprehensively readable searching this way in my opinion.

For example this one line just searches dev1galaxy only, for the keyword 'boot'.

boot site:dev1galaxy.org

Only showing results from dev1galaxy.org

Or use the ducks bang feature.
!dev1galaxy boot

Last edited by soren (2024-01-10 02:51:55)

guuml.dev1 · 2024-01-28 19:03:47

Thanks @soren for mentioning duckduckgo. That search engine is rarely used by me, although it ranks 3rd in my firefox profile. (And basically the profile is older then my 1st devuan/jessie install ;-) Usually my order of search engines is startpage, de.wikipedia, duckduckgo, … and others. This setup works well since decades both for me and others! (Read: other peoples computer I'm maintaining.) It provides "every day search findings" in many cases. They are good almost everywhere (at least the last two decades :-)

But: what happens when looking for some devuan issue at dev1galaxy?

Today I have made some investigation to a long outstanding problem:

A) searching the dev1galaxy forum gives an URL like:

dev1galaxy.org/search.php?action=search … earch+term

Without search restriction (this is the default!) there are many results!

TL;DR: A couple of times I have refined the search: Oh, there are still a lot of other interesting things. But I didn't find what I'm looking for.

B) using duckduckgo according to soren:

Cool. As of this writing duckduckgo provides an javascript free search interface! Append " site:dev1galaxy.org" or prepend "!dev1galaxy " to your search string (note the space before or after string).

duckduckgo.com/html?q=search+term+site:dev1galaxy.org

or with slightly different results:

duckduckgo.com/html?q=!dev1galaxy+search+term

C) Using startpage URL:

www.startpage.com/do/dsearch?q=mouse+fo … galaxy.org

Again: startpage is still my favorite engine for daily usage but not for devuan. The results are very bad, only few to nothing. And they don't look better on a terminal :-(

Summary: As of this writing I'm now starting to search the dev1galaxy with duckduckgo.com/html without javascript.

-- guuml

BTW: some times I like to view some sites with a www-browser like w3m IMHO, others may prefer lynx. Searching from the commandline for "search term" may look like:

www-browser "https://search.engine/options?query=search term"

+1 point for DDG: w3m displays the results in a fancy way.

Update:

Some time ago there was a thread … ah very long time ago … I remember only vaguely … one of the first posts I have read …

Before you ask your question, …
But there are other resources available that might help you to find an answer even before you ask here …

Sometimes I have to read the information twice

Update 2: (last of today:)

A search script may look like

#!/bin/sh -xv
# find-dev1galaxy - search in the officially official devuan forum

SEARCH_TERM=`echo "$* site:dev1galaxy.org" | tr ' ' '+'`
exec www-browser "https://duckduckgo.com/html?q=$SEARCH_TERM"

Or if you prefer functions in bashism:

find_dev1galaxy() {
 w3m "https://duckduckgo.com/html?q=${*// /+}+site:dev1galaxy.org"
}

Ok, processing advanced search options isn't that good

Have a nice week --guuml

Last edited by guuml.dev1 (2024-01-28 22:55:40)

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#1 2024-01-09 16:30:51

Forum search tips and tricks

#2 2024-01-10 02:43:55

Re: Forum search tips and tricks

#3 2024-01-28 19:03:47

Re: Forum search tips and tricks

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