Scratch

I would love to have more powerful search capabilities!  I would like to be able to say, for example, "find all the projects that have the word Easter in either the Description or the Title  or in tags and present them in reverse chronological order".  Maybe there is a way to do this now?  Any advanced Google users out there?

Paddle2See wrote:

I would love to have more powerful search capabilities!  I would like to be able to say, for example, "find all the projects that have the word Easter in either the Description or the Title  or in tags and present them in reverse chronological order".  Maybe there is a way to do this now?  Any advanced Google users out there?

There is, but it's not entirely accurate all the time. But anybody can still try this out. Hopefully, what I type will be clear (I'm going to be gone for a few days). If not, just ask, and I'll do my best to answer when I get back. 

A plus sign (+) combines keywords (sort of like the Boolean operator 'AND'), and a minus sign (-) filters the succeeding word (sort of like the Boolean operator 'NOT'). Quotation marks are used to enclose phrases you want to search (enclosing single words in quotations isn't necessary, but it's a good habit to practice and can sometimes yield better results).

Let's return back to the toothpaste and cat example I provided earlier.

If I wanted to use SCRATCH's search function and find a project having both "cat" and "toothpaste" as its tags, I would type in this:
"toothpaste"+"cat"+"tags"
which indicates I want to find a web page that has the words "toothpaste", "cat", and "tags". (criteria: toothpaste AND cat AND tags)

Here's the same search, here specifying for a specific user (randalpik)
"toothpaste"+"cat"+"tags"+"randalpik"

If I wanted to use SCRATCH's search function and find projects having only "toothpaste" and not "cat", not made by randalpik, I would type in something like this:
"toothpaste"+"tags" -"cat" -"randalpik"
which indicates I want to find a web page that only has the words "toothpaste" and "tags", but not the word "cat". (criteria: toothpaste AND tags, NOT cat, NOT randalpik) (note the space right before the minus sign. Always put spaces between keywords to be excluded, and always put them at the end).

If I wanted to use SCRATCH's search function and find projects with toothpaste, not cats, and had a tag phrase that said "this is kool", I would type in something like this:
"toothpaste"+"tags"+"this is kool" -"cat"
which indicates I want to find a web page that has the words "toothpaste" and "tags", also has the phrase 'this is kool', but does not have the word "cat". (criteria: toothpaste AND tags AND 'this is kool', NOT cat).

You can mix, combine, and filer out different combinations of keywords to refine your result. For example, I may want to add the word 'project' and exclude the word 'forums' in the examples I've provided above in an attempt to leave out forum pages. It depends on what you're looking for.

Under normal search criteria, Google searches by Page Rank (a weird system, which is based foremost on the number of links leading to a given page. In the case of SCRATCH, projects who have been favored the most will most likely surface first among the results because many userpages will have links to those projects in their favorites).

I have no idea how to sort them alphabetically or chronologically via input in SCRATCH's custom Google search engine (maybe someone else here knows?), but a workaround is to go directly to Google home page, punch in the search criteria as it is, then add the following phrase after the search criteria: site:scratch.mit.edu. So, going back to the third example, I would input this in the Google search box: "toothpaste"+"tags" -"cat" -"randalpik" site:scratch.mit.edu

Then you would have to hit 'search'; then, when the search is complete, hit the 'advanced search' option (found on the side of the search bar), and use the advanced search options to sort by date (it's sneaky to find, you have to look for a button with a blue plus sign in order to open up the search box window to sort by date).

I sometimes use this method of search, but to be honest, I prefer something where I can see the preview thumbnail instead of having to load almost every project link I see.

Additionally, the search also includes any word on the page when using its search (such as keywords that appear in titles of projects in the 'More projects by ___' section, or even in someone's username) which may add false results. Lastly, it can sometimes take months for the Google search to index the pages of new projects (sometimes it can take less, but regardless, it still takes a while), another flaw in using a Google search engine.

But anyway, I think that covers my little how-to-use-the-search-engine lesson   

Last edited by cheddargirl (2009-04-14 01:46:58)