Can shortest search string be set to 3 characters?

[Jim_R]

Just tried to search for a 3-letter airport code, and was told my search keywords were "too short, too long, or too common".

Yeah, a lot of the time a 3-letter search is just going to generate a jillion hits, but on the other hand a lot of airport codes are something uncommon like "l09" and aren't just going to pop up in the middle of a word.

Is that limitation hard-coded into the forum software, or is that a setting that can be changed?

 

[jason]

Just tried to search for a 3-letter airport code, and was told my search keywords were "too short, too long, or too common".

Yeah, a lot of the time a 3-letter search is just going to generate a jillion hits, but on the other hand a lot of airport codes are something uncommon like "l09" and aren't just going to pop up in the middle of a word.

Is that limitation hard-coded into the forum software, or is that a setting that can be changed?

It's a limitation baked into the board software and into the database software that we use (MySQL). Full-text search in MySQL is a minimum of four characters. I'd need to drop/rebuild the index in MySQL and make the change in Xenforo.

I'll take another look at it soon.

https://xenforo.com/community/threads/frequently-asked-questions.5183/#post-180445

 

[Jim_R]

Ah. From the little bit of digging I did it looks like 4 is the minimum search string length with the standard MySQL search capability provided with XenForo. With a paid upgrade to add the XenForo Enhanced Search option, which uses elasticsearch as the underlying engine, the minimum search string length can be eliminated.

https://xenforo.com/community/threads/length-of-search-string.111049/

 

[jason]

I forgot to mention it here. Try it now, I made the necessary changes.

 

[EdFred]

Seems to work.

Hey, @jason speaking of three letter characters. Would there be anyway to make a bbcode tag such as [airport]ABC[/airport] or [airport]KABC[/airport] that would allow a hover/popover to show the City/State/Name of the place. I can provide the CSV data and/or javascript necessary for it that if it helps.

 

[AggieMike88]

Hey, @jason speaking of three letter characters. Would there be anyway to make a bbcode tag such as [airport]ABC[/airport] or [airport]KABC[/airport] that would allow a hover/popover to show the City/State/Name of the place. I can provide the CSV data and/or javascript necessary for it that if it helps.

That would be useful.

Can you also add a hyperlink to an A/FD source such as airnav or AOPA airports so clicking on the letters gets us to that page?

 

[EdFred]

That would be useful.

Can you also add a hyperlink to an A/FD source such as airnav or AOPA airports so clicking on the letters gets us to that page?

That's actually a piece of cake to do what you are requesting. It's literally 3 lines of code. My popover would take that three lines, plus about 10 more to define the css and the div. Still a piece of cake.

 

[Caramon13]

And while you're at it, can you make that popup show the latest METAR/TAF and the closest restaurant to the airport and the average property value of the homes nearby?

That would be super..

 

[EdFred]

And while you're at it, can you make that popup show the latest METAR/TAF and the closest restaurant to the airport and the average property value of the homes nearby?

That would be super..

That's easy enough if there's a data feed.

 

[Jim_R]

I forgot to mention it here. Try it now, I made the necessary changes.

Hey, thanks very much! Working great.

But I missed your reply to me due to another limitation, which I will now go post about in a separate thread...