[ENH]: Default to searching in current forum

[Sean P. DeNigris]

The new "Search everywhere" option is cool, but I think the old this-forum-only search was a better default option. I find that's what I want most of the time, especially for a first search pass.

Thanks,
Sean

[GregChapman]

The new search feature is, indeed, an improvement, with the second option working the way the old search facility did.

The advantage is that now it makes plain to the casual visitor what the scope of search will be. As you know, this depends on the level in the forum that you start the search - at the top level it is the entire forum, but further down in the hierarchy will be the current forum and its sub-forums, or just the current topic.

Whether the alternative "everywhere" is a better default will depend entirely on the content of your forum. If you are an administrator and moderate your forum heavily, or have highly disciplined users, then it will be easy for you predict where that missing post is and you will already be in the right sub-forum to find the post you want as you start your search  (and you will use the right terms to find it).

However, I reckon that on many forums and for many visitors that decide to search after failing to find the information by just browsing for it, the "everywhere" option would be the one they'd choose, as they may not intuitively understand the forum structure and be even close to the right place for the answer they seek.

I'm not even sure that I would want an option to set the preference for the search, as I'm not sure that I could predict the way my users would use the search facility.

Just my thoughts...