Does Answers' search engine really work?

When I run a search, there is no logic to the order of threads that get displayed. I search on a term I know is in the title of very recent threads, but get listings beginning last August. There is also, conspicuously, a lot less flexibility than the Newsgroup search engine: no separate searching according to tags, author, subject, etc...

Is there a trick to its use that I'm just not seeing?

Answer 1

[Image Analyst]

There is a pulldown list at the top of the hit list. It gives hits in terms of relevancy. I almost always have to change it to "By Date (Newest-Oldest)" because I'm trying to find some recent discussion that I remembered. To search by a tag, you can click on the tag, or else type "tag:"theTagYouWant"" into the search field. The tag has to be in double quotes no matter if it's one work or multiple words. I don't know how to search for author, "author:"Image Analyst" doesn't work for some reason.

[Matt J]

OK. Well, it's adequate I guess, but I think they should imitate the Advanced Search interface from the Newsgroup.

[Walter Roberson]

answered_by:"image analyst"

commented_by:"image analyst"

contributor:"image analyst"

See http://www.mathworks.com/matlabcentral/about/answers/

[Image Analyst]

OK. Odd though that it doesn't work the same as the File Exchange where the syntax author:"image analyst" works fine. And what is contributor? Is that both answered_by and commented_by combined, with duplicates eliminated? I agree that an advanced search would be better.

[Walter Roberson]

contributor is asked, answered, or commented.