# Why does the default search ignore thread titles?



## drew2k (Jun 10, 2003)

I was trying to find some threads in the TV Show Talk forum and found that the default search behavior *ignores* thread titles. Is this a bug?

The only way I could search thread titles was to go to Advanced Search and change the selection from "Search Entire Posts" to "Search Titles Only". Shouldn't the default behavior be to search both thread titles *and* thread posts?

I pasted examples of two searches into the attached PDF to illustrate what I'm talking about.

Is there any way to make the default behavior to search both posts *AND* thread titles?

Thanks.


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## David Bott (Jan 1, 1999)

You can search by thread title or by thread content. Always has been like this. It will not such both at one time. Sorry.


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## drew2k (Jun 10, 2003)

David Bott said:


> You can search by thread title or by thread content. Always has been like this. It will not such both at one time. Sorry.


Thanks David. I don't know if this is common knowledge to TCF members that they should try a second search on "titles-only" if their first "post-only" search doesn't return the results they desire ...


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## madscientist (Nov 12, 2003)

This has been really frustrating to me as well. Actually I don't want to search both at the same time, but I want a simpler way to search titles only. 99.9999% of the time when I search, I want to search titles only (for a thread on a show). I can't remember the last time I wanted to search the content.

To me it would be best if there were a way to do a search of titles without jumping to the advanced search page, but if that's not available can we at least change the default selection in the advanced search page to "titles only", so that I can just hit advanced search and enter the title without having to also change the search type?

After all, if the simple search is for content only, it seems to me to make more sense for the advanced search to default to title search.


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## Sherminator (Nov 24, 2004)

The mad thread bumper striketh again.

With the mod installed during the boards upgrade, there is now a fairly easy way to find a thread based on text in the title alone:

Start a new thread with the words that you are looking for, then as soon as the title loses focus, a list of threads containing some or all of the words you entered is presented to you.

OK, It won't contain all of the threads, but it is likely to have a thread relevant to your search.


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