I believe search of the discussion forums (members only) is a very important function to add. Even though we are a fairly small organization (65 members) and have only been using WA for a couple years, we already have 7 pages of discussion topics. Searching through them manually is already a pain. Searching on the title and text would be great. I am not sure that searching the content of attachments is necessary. There is probably enough language in the title and text to find relevant posts.

People have multiple 'discussion' opportunities (Facebook, LinkedIn, etc....). We want to make sure that our members ALSO see value in the discussions our group provides through Wild Apricot.

Yes, this is still on our roadmap but we have not made any progress on it yet.

Is this still on the roadmap? Any estimated dates or details about what it will include?

I concur re need to enhance the discussion forum feature (LISTSERV/notification default on). But re search functionality, I am content with the Google Customised Search provision, which I have implemented in all my Wild Apricot websites by inserted embed code in footer (which appears on every page), e.g. http://ourfuturetogether.net

I appreciate that this will not satisfy those who want a search feature for private pages only. Here, I am sympathetic to Wild Apricot's low prioritisation, as it would require a lot of programming time to realise.

Hi

Just to say that we also consider that decent search functionality is critical to our organisation. I have already posted on this topic before, but impmemntation timescales seem to keep on drifting to the right.

Wild Apricot just has two major shortcomings in our view, the lack of a decent search facility, and the very poor discussion forum functionality in the current service. We would like to see both of these areas addressed soon please.

All the best

Colin

I'm implementing Wild Apricot for a small professional body in Britain and Ireland. Much of our content is restricted (not least because we want non-members to join in order to see it).

It really is impossible to exaggerate the importance of adequate search for restricted content. Bluntly, a work-round that doesn't handle restricted content isn't a work-round. Even though Wild Apricot offers everything else we need (and more) at a great price, I know that I will get major hassles from the members on this.

Which is ironic, considering I come from a search background myself!

I absolutely understand that you have many pressures on your time, and that solving this problem is not straightforward. But if it's allowed to run on unsolved for too much longer, it will become a serious brake on the uptake of Wild Apricot - if it isn't already.

We also would like a WA search feature for the full website and individual forums.

There is already a keyword search field on the member directory which does search all the displayed fields across all records.

See first screenshot ij this section http://help.wildapricot.com/display/DOC/Member+directory#Memberdirectory-Howyourmemberdirectoryisdisplayed

Please elaborate further.

I should have been more specific. What I would prefer for the member directory is to be able to put in any keyword or phrase and search the whole thing, not have to select the field and then search it. Having one search field on the directory listing that searches everything in the member database and not just the listing on that page. I hope this makes more sense.

Unfortunately due to delays with releases 3.4 and 3.5 this will probably not get released before the beginning of 2011.

About searching member profiles - this can be done on the member directory page already - do you need something else?

Just wanted to add my vote. Searching the text for the entire site is important but not as important as full search of member profiles. I'm working on 2 Chamber of Commerce sites and being able to completely search the member profiles is a requirement. I can't emphasize how important this is! We are halfway through 2010 now, any update on when this capability might be available?

Thanks!

Jack,

FYI - It looks like that notice was out of date - it is currently possible to insert Custom Google Search into header or footer. I have updated the help page.

Hi,

Glad to hear this is on the Roadmap, as it would be useful for us my account also.

For now I have added a Custom Google Search to our site. I notice in the Help topic, it says there is currently no way to add this to the header or footer, but you "are working on it."

I would love to be able to add the Search box to our page header (or to the area below the side menus) so it shows up automatically on every page. Otherwise it is unwieldy to add to each page and doesn't do much for our layout.

Any progress on this apsect? Thanks.

Jack Massa
http://greateratlantaastd.cloverpad.org

This one of the Top 50 items we have scheduled for development in 2010.

We'll keep you up to date of our progress on this in this forum. As always, we welcome any questions or suggestions you have about website text search.

It's on the roadmap for 2010, when we schedule it into a specific release, I will post an update.

I would like to get an update when the search functionality is planned to be implemented?

We have added a Google search box for now, but it comes with ads for Google and a built-in search box would be MUCH better. Glad to hear this is being worked on. Thank you.

ditto! Having a system where Google can index all the membership profiles as well as allowing for a fully flexible search system would be a MAJOR benefit to our members as well as to the community that is looking for our members.

We would like this feature added as well.

Ideal world: Yes, we'd like to be able to search for anything in any form (web page content, .doc files, .pdf files, database content, forum content, blog, etc.) in both public and private areas.

Real world: I'd settle for a step-wise implementation starting with (a) built-in text search of web pages (public and private) with private results only displayed for logged in members; (b) Next, extend the search results to include uploaded files (.doc(x), .pdf, .xls(x)); (c) Extend search to include forum and blog posting; (d) Possibly extend search to include Events and Members databases although I'm not certain that I'd want this mixed in with the other search results.

Just my $0.02 FWIW.