Old 06-26-2012, 04:22 PM
  #8  
TonyC
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Joined APC: Nov 2005
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Originally Posted by HSLD View Post

What I would suggest, with your permission, is to make this post into a FAQ, then users can roll their own filters and save them as a browser bookmark. It is worth mentioning that users will want to save the query and not the resulting search ID to their bookmark links.

It would be even more useful if you could help fill in the blanks (the question marks) I left with my crude method of harvesting the numbers associated with each forum.

Your point about bookmarking the query and not the search ID bears repeating. Perhaps it would be beneficial to give an example of the resulting URL with Search ID to show what not to bookmark.



Feel free to use whatever portions of my post you wish. Per the Intellectual Property clause of the "Terms and Conditions of Use", I granted nonexclusive global rights to adapt and publish when I posted. I won't be offended so long as it's put to use for the benefit of pilots.



Originally Posted by HSLD View Post

Great post Tony, thanks! As you point out, the problem is trying to anticipate the combination forums and exclude/include options to keep everyone happy. Forum subscriptions can work for specific forums, but your exclude solution is also very helpful for a "new posts" filter.

I'm not as brilliant as the post might suggest. I have to give credit for this bit of knowledge to the Co-Founder of another pilot website powered by vBulletin, the original "Pilots helping Pilots" site. He used this method to power three "New Posts" buttons. One button searches for only new posts which are "Aviation Related." Another button excludes any new posts in the Politics sections. A third searches for all new posts on the site. Those three buttons seem to satisfy most users, and the method described above to customize a search and save it to a bookmark works for everyone else. Constructing the custom search there is a little easier because the forum number is part of the forum's URL (which appears in status bar when you hover your mouse over the forum titles). If you could provide a complete list of the forums and their associated numbers, that would be helpful.







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