Finding Resources

Search Engine

The search engine is provided by the Content Management System (CMS) that MRC uses at its core. Basically this means the MRC search engine is different from other search engines, e.g. Google. Unfortunately, like Google, there is little to be done about controlling the search results.

What is Searched

The search engine kicks in when using a Search Box, text is entered and search is started. The search engine processes the following web page components:

Resource Title
Intro/Search Results Text
Description and Update Contents, if applicable
Owner’s Name

Unfortunately the search engine ignores the following:

Category
Tags
Custom Fields

Filters

Filters are always applied first, which means a filter like Author (Owner) = Biggles is applied first, with those results subsequently being searched for any text entered.

The Text

As mentioned above, this is where the search engine kicks in, so it is what it is.

Searches are on individual words

The search engine cannot process “this phrase”. Instead it processes “this” and “phrase” as separate words, quotation marks are ignored.

Searches on word Stem

This means that similar to Google, the search engine will attempt to search for similar words by using the stem. For example, a search for Collective, will return results containing the words Collect and Collection, as well as Collective. Unfortunately, since quotation marks are ignored, it is not possible to get exact matches for search words.

The end result of this is that a search may return additional results that don’t exactly match the search.

It is my hope to include owner, categories, tags and resource fields in the search result filtering system discussed in the Roadmap and Log page

Game Search Pages

The game specific search pages are usually the best way to search for resources. By default the search pages list all resources for the selected game. The pages consist of the following sections:

Search Tips

Expand the search tips elements for basic and advanced tips and also links to the alternate search options for Categories and Tags. Lastly, there is also a button(s) to other game searches.

Search Box and Advanced Search button

Labelled “Search Terms”, the search box provides hints as you type (autofill). Pressing Enter while in the search box refreshes the search result’s page, listing all found resources. If empty, all resources are listed. See Search Engine for more details.

Advanced Search Button
This can be ignored at this time. It is part of the CMS core search page and I haven’t been able to get rid of it yet.

Filter by Author (Owner)

The drop down list, currently labelled Filter by Author (don’t ask), allows you to filter the resources on a single owner prior to performing the search.

Sort By

This drop-down list allows you to sort the search results by:

Date Added - The date the resource was added into MRC. The default order is most recently added first
Title
Relevance - Not sure exactly what this is, an algorithm of sorts which adds a score to results and sorts on that score

Search Results

The search results list the resources matching your search criteria and contain the following functionality and information:

Resource Title and Image - Both are links to the more detailed resource page. The image often refers to the owner as opposed to the individual resource. More resource specific images are in the resource detail record
Intro - A short blurb about the resource to help you decide if it's something of interest to you.
Direct Link and an optional Alternative Link - These are direct links to the resource, so you don’t need to go into the resource page for the links.
Assorted other resource details

Browse Categories

The Catalogue > Categories page displays a list of all game categories including:

Category
Description
Resource Count - The number of resources in that category

Selecting a category produces a list of resources assigned to the category that includes:

Resource Title
Resource Modified Date - This is either the date the resource was added to MRC or the date it was updated in MRC. This has no relevance to the resource itself. That is contained in the Updated field in the search result and resource page.
Owner
Hits - The number of times the page has been viewed. This is not a unique count.

Functionality includes:

Sorting using column headers
Filtering by owner name
Opening the resource page by selecting the title

Unfortunately the list of resources is not as detailed as the search results and only contains minimal information, however in future updates there will be an option to filter on category, making this list redundant.

Browse Tags

The Catalogue > Tags page displays a list of all resource tags including Tag and
Tag Description. There is also an option to filter by tag name.

Selecting a tag produces a list of resources that are have that tag which includes:

Resource Title
Resource Modified Date - This is either the date the resource was added to MRC or the date it was updated in MRC. This has no relevance to the resource itself. That is contained in the Updated field in the search result and resource page.