How do I search better?

[MartinBlomberg]

Hi

 

I guess this is a somewhat Catch 22 question, since I can't find if this have been asked before 😃

I just want to understand how I can search the forum better, since I find it hard to find relevant information quite often, and also get several hundreds of results where some aren't even relevant.

 

Would be great to search this forum better. Many thanks!

Martin

[line-weight]

I'd like to know too - I often find it hard to find stuff.

 

Have you realised if you clock on the magnifying glass in the search bar you get this, which can help narrow things down a bit?

 

 

 

 

I sometimes use "search by author" when I'm trying to find a thread that I'm sure I posted at some point in the distant past!

[Tom W.]

I always search for Forum posts in Google. I've never had much luck doing it in the Forum itself.

[mjm]

1 hour ago, Tom W. said:

I always search for Forum posts in Google. I've never had much luck doing it in the Forum itself.

And so much faster to get the result in general

[zoomer]

3 hours ago, MartinBlomberg said:

I just want to understand how I can search the forum better,

 

Hmmh, I am careful and usually try 3-5 different keywords per search.

And sometimes I go into options but that rarely gave better results.

 

 

2 hours ago, Tom W. said:

I always search for Forum posts in Google.

 

As I use Duckduckgo that wouldn't help much 🙂

(but honestly I never tried - should do)

 

But much better than my latest search attempts in Apple Preview.

So I'll continue to fight with the VW Forum search.

(the german forum search is usually much worse)

Edited February 13 by zoomer

[Pat Stanford]

Or use a general search engine (ie. Google) and add an extra search term of "Site:Forum.Vectorworks.Net" (without the quotes.

 

This extra term will force the search engine to only return hits from the Forum web site.

[Elite Exhibits]

...and when searching VW HELP - do it from a browser also.

 

     Type what you think you want to find here  site:app-help.vectorworks.net/2023/

 

or for VW 2021 - site:app-help.vectorworks.net/2021/

       or for that mater change the last number to match your VW year

 

Follow @zoomer advice on different keywords above - Even if you type in exacty what the Menu item or Tool is.

HELP is loaded with great information - It is just not easily accessed some times.

 

Example Attached:

          Page 1 - Search inside VW HELP - Drop Down appears to have a match to what was typed

          Page 2 - First hit out of 1259 (?) - Not what was requested

          Page 3 - Search with Google outside of VW HELP - Second hit looks good

          Page 4 - Google search found it - and the requested phrase was in VW HELP it just did not find it as such.

 

¿ What is the "box indicator" ?

 

Peter

Box Indicator.pdf.pdf

[Jacob@tangably.com]

On 2/13/2024 at 11:11 AM, line-weight said:

I'd like to know too - I often find it hard to find stuff.

 

Have you realised if you clock on the magnifying glass in the search bar you get this, which can help narrow things down a bit?

 

 

 

 

I sometimes use "search by author" when I'm trying to find a thread that I'm sure I posted at some point in the distant past!

Thanks! never new this search filter existed under the magnifying glass, a whole new world of options!