How to search the forumAs a result of the large amount of information that has been growing over all the years since the establishment of this forum, the chances that a (new) user has a question that has never been answered or discussed before is getting smaller and smaller.
Therefore it is important that when a question arises, the first thing to do is searching the forum for answers, so not to force other members repeating the same sort of answers again and again, and so clogging the forum with multiple variations of similar answers being scattered all-over.
At the moment of writing, there are several ways how one can search the forum (or the Wiki or the web), such as:
- Google / Bing / DuckDuckGo et.al
- LLMs
- The forum's search bar
- The forum's custom search (icon)
- MusicBee's
Custom Forum Search Here are some observations on these options:
Google Will be the most familiar option for most.
The advice for that one is to prepend your search query with:
site:getmusicbee.com/forum/ example In that way, only MusicBee's forum will be searched.
Note that there must be a space between .../forum/ and your search query.
LLM's getting better and better day by day
Some may be better in finding linguistic type of answers, some may be better in finding suggestions for code. (such as formulas for virtual tags and regexes)
A forum topic on that subject can be found
here.
MusicBee's forum search bar There are actually two options there:
1. The 'Search something…' search bar at the top-right.
2. The looking glass icon right beside it at the left.
The latter will allow for refining searches by filtering on topic boards, time periods, forum members, etc.
MusicBee Custom Forum Search This one is rather new.
link It is using the regular Google search engine, but is tweaked for use with MusicBee topics and search queries.
Some of the benefits is has over a regular Google search:
- it searches both MusicBee's forum and MusicBee's Wiki, ignoring other 'www noise'.
- it uses an internal list of synonyms tweaked for this purpose, resulting in more relevant results
- its auto-complete suggestions are restricted to forum and Wiki content, vastly improving their value
- it will show highlighted auto-completes for certain search terms (recommendations from staff
(1), marked by a ⭐)
- it will show highlighted search results at the top for certain search terms (relevant reads, suggested by staff
(1))
(1) 'staff' is you and I.
Help improving on this by replying to this thread with good suggestions for highlighted topics. It also has some useful options:
Forum vs. Wiki By default search results will include both.
You can narrow the results down to what's on either of them by selecting the appropriate tab.
Dark and Light theme The default link to the
Custom Forum Search will lead to a dark-themed version.
If you type '
light' in the search box you will see a link to a light-themed version as the top result.
Synonyms this means that you can for example type:
albumart, and the results will include
artwork sync, and the results will include
synchronise theatre mode, and the results will include
theatermode xmlc, and the results will include
bitmapped etc.
note that the order of search results may differ depending on the term you use There are also some 'shortcut search' abbreviations that are useful when doing a search on some more frequently used, takes-longer-to-type search phrases.
(see 'Some tips on using search queries' below)
Highlighted auto-completes Keep an eye on the auto-completes that show up when you start typing.
They will usually offer useful suggestions.
Some will be highlighted with a coloured star, indicating it may especially be worth a read.
Highlighted results at the top of the search page These are links to posts, Wiki articles or other content sources that are deemed highly relevant in regard to the search term used.
Which brings us to:An Invitation To Help Improving On Highlighted Search Results These highlighted top results are not automatically generated but manually added.
So this is (and will probably remain) a work in progress.
You are invited to contribute by helping improving it by making suggestions for additional highlighted results.
It's best to make suggestions for things that
are not already showing up somewhere at the top anyway.
If you have performed a search on something for which you know valuable content exists on the forum, the Wiki, or maybe the web, and it was not on the first search results page:
Please make a suggestion for it by simply replying to this thread.
It should:
- include the specific search words or terms
- one (or more) links to the proposed content
- a brief one-sentence description of it (optional)
These suggestions are then open to be discussed with other members.
Some tips on using search queries
• exclude words by prepending them with a minus sign
e.g.:
sync -android
will return results that don't have 'android' in them
• define a time span
e.g.:
android after:2023-1-1
will show posts containing 'android' for the last 1 1/2 year (as we speak)
android before:2020
will show posts containing 'android' before 2020
you can also combine the two:
android after:2024-1-14 before:2024-1-21
• use OR to add words that are optionally included
(note that OR actually functions as AND/OR in this situation)
for example:
You are looking for a post sometime last year about pitch/speed/bpm, but you are not sure how it was referred to exactly.
if you e.g. do:
pitch speed bpm after:2022
it will only find posts that contain all three words
if you do:
pitch OR speed OR bpm after:2022
all posts that contain either of them will be found
note:
Instead of [space]OR[space] you can also use a vertical line:
pitch|speed|bpm after:2022
• quick shortcut abbreviations
These can be used for including a takes-longer-to-type (more frequently used) search term by only typing its abbreviation.
For now there are:
abbreviation | searches for |
| atrt | additional tagging & reporting tools |
| mb | musicbee |
| tm | theater mode |
| vt | virtual tag |
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happy searching!
Topic: How to Search the Forum • Options • Tips • Tricks (Read 2831 times)