Knowledge Base Useability

[Guest BillV]

The Knowledgebase can be a potential source of very useful information. However the search facility leaves much to be desired.

A simple search of "Vectorworks 2009 System Requirements" produced 28 pages of results but nothing matching my criteria on pages 1 to 5 plus a wealth of information not even remotely connected to the search.

A trip to Google located the exact reference instantly.

Surely something could be done to improve the search on the Kbase.

[PVA - Admin]

Fear not, the thing that we are doing to fix the knowledgebase search is to implement a completely new knowledgebase system. It will come online at some point after the new forums do and will integrate with them directly so that one search will check both the kbase and community board content at the same time.

[Tom Klaber]

Any timeline on the new forums? Before or After 2017?

[PVA - Admin]

It will likely come out either in the next months just before release, or shortly thereafter. I would rather not launch a new version of Vectorworks and a new version of the forums at the same time for support reasons, so we may bump the forum release earlier or later to avoid that.

[Jim Smith]

^ +1

Tom,

From my experience this happens with all sorts of other websites. In fact when I mentioned a similar frustration with building officials at the City of Toronto I was met with "We all use Google, we NEVER use the search on our website"

8-/

[PVA - Admin]

It's pretty common with older tech. Search algorithms are taken for granted now, but before 2003 or so a lot of companies made their own lame systems, which is what the search on the kbase and these forums are based on. There is a BIG reason Google became such a prominent household name, good Search is everything. After our upgrade, our search tech will effectively be jumping forward 22 years.

[Jim Smith]

So you're going to retire Gofer?

;-)

[PVA - Admin]

I may even give it a viking funeral.