Stupid question

LordP · 10-03-2023, 11:30 AM

Does the search function in Mobileread work?

I can't count the times I have done searches and not gotten a single good hit.

Today I was looking for the "Polish Books" plugin, in the Calibre > Plugins subdirectory and I can't find bupkus. I basically get the whole damn subreddit.

It's ridiculous that other people are able to search and I feel like an idiot.

Please tell me I'm not a complete idiot. No, don't say "You have bits missing", don't do it.

Anyway, I was going to make a request to the author, and even offer a cash bonus, and I can't find the person.

Dammit.

DNSB · 10-03-2023, 12:01 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by LordP

Does the search function in Mobileread work?

I can't count the times I have done searches and not gotten a single good hit.

Today I was looking for the "Polish Books" plugin, in the Calibre > Plugins subdirectory and I can't find bupkus. I basically get the whole damn subreddit.

It's ridiculous that other people are able to search and I feel like an idiot.

Please tell me I'm not a complete idiot. No, don't say "You have bits missing", don't do it.

Anyway, I was going to make a request to the author, and even offer a cash bonus, and I can't find the person.

Dammit.

My suspicion would be that since Polish Books is not a third party calibre plugin but rather part of the calibre program(s) written by Kovid Goyal, it would not be listed as a external plugin in the calibre Plugins subforum.

For more information on what Polish Books can do, see ebook-polish in the calibre manual pages.

If you check Plugins in the calibre Preferences, you will find Polish Books listed with the author listed as Kovid Goyal.

As for the search function? More often than not, I use Google with site:mobileread.com as I find the results are better. An example would be 'polish books site:mobileread.com' without the 's. For me, the first hit using that search is: Introducing New tool: "Polish" Books.

LordP · 10-03-2023, 12:34 PM

Thanks for the info.

My take is that the search function in Mobilereads is terrible, and it is entirely unsurprising that I have never had a successful search - good to know. And thanks for the tip about searching.

All I wanted to ask is if "Polish Books" could have one added function: Improve Contrast.

I guess I'll try to contact Kovid.

ZodWallop · 10-03-2023, 01:09 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by LordP

Does the search function in Mobileread work?

Today I was looking for the "Polish Books" plugin, in the Calibre > Plugins subdirectory and I can't find bupkus. I basically get the whole damn subreddit.

If doing a search at Mobileread brought up a subreddit, then I would say no. Search is not working.

On the other hand, I went to Bing and searched: mobileread polish books calibre plug-in. I got this: Introducing New tool: "Polish" Books

Cactus Chef · 10-03-2023, 02:05 PM

Man, I read this thread five times before I realized you were asking about "polish books" and not "Polish books" (i.e. this plugin does not notify you about the latest Olga Tokarczuk novel).

Anyway! To answer your questions:

1) The search function in Mobileread *does* work, it's just not as precise as you were hoping for. I repeated your steps and searched under the plugins section for "polish books", and indeed every resulting topic did at least contain the word 'polish' and 'books' somewhere in the message, but not always together, and therein lies the problem. Putting "polish books" together in quotes didn't do much to improve the results.

2) Per ZodWallop's reference, you may have had trouble finding the plugin in the plugins form, because it looks like Kovid actually announced the feature in the Calibre general forum. So essentially, you were looking in the wrong place (even if you had good reason to think that it would be in the plug-ins subforum).

3) The two workarounds suggested by DNSB and ZodWallop may help you in the future, although they're not technically using MobileRead's search functions as they are using external websites to search *within* MobileRead. But, to some extent I agree with their approach of using the right tool for the job, rather than bemoaning the state of default features on an antiquated BBS forum. This site looks like crap on mobile, but, that's unlikely to change anytime soon, either, so, I stopped expending energy whining about it.

theducks · 10-03-2023, 03:16 PM

Polish is not a (user) Plugin.
It is BUILT IN. The Icon is a hand broom (duster).
You may need to add it to a toolbar via Preferences: Toolbars & menus:

Karellen · 10-03-2023, 03:41 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by LordP

Does the search function in Mobileread work?

Which Search are you using?
Are you using the tiny Search box in the top right corner, or
Are you using the full Search options page?... https://www.mobileread.com/forums/search.php

j.p.s · 10-03-2023, 04:50 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Karellen

Which Search are you using?
Are you using the tiny Search box in the top right corner, or
Are you using the full Search options page?... https://www.mobileread.com/forums/search.php

What Karellen wrote.

You can navigate to it from the Search drop down menu in the blue bare near the top of the page by clicking on "Advanced Search". By selecting the calibre forum and its child subforums, you wil maximize the chance that searching "polish books" will get hits on polishing books instead of books written in Polish.

LordP · 10-04-2023, 06:30 AM

I went into the "Plugins" sub and used "Search this forum".

It seems more than one person uses external searches, so that's what I'll be trying from, now on.

j.p.s · 10-04-2023, 01:01 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by LordP

I went into the "Plugins" sub and used "Search this forum".

It seems more than one person uses external searches, so that's what I'll be trying from, now on.

Did you click "Advanced Search" or only type something in the search dialog?

You have to use the features of "Advanced Search" to get good results, which usually are better than external search except for searching on phrases.

DNSB · 10-04-2023, 02:32 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by j.p.s

You have to use the features of "Advanced Search" to get good results, which usually are better than external search except for searching on phrases.

My personal experience has been that unless I am searching for posts by a specific poster, external search far more often than not produces more useful search results.

HLS · 10-04-2023, 02:41 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by LordP

Does the search function in Mobileread work?

I can't count the times I have done searches and not gotten a single good hit.

Today I was looking for the "Polish Books" plugin, in the Calibre > Plugins subdirectory and I can't find bupkus. I basically get the whole damn subreddit.

It's ridiculous that other people are able to search and I feel like an idiot.

Please tell me I'm not a complete idiot. No, don't say "You have bits missing", don't do it.

Anyway, I was going to make a request to the author, and even offer a cash bonus, and I can't find the person.

Dammit.

Use the advanced search option

DNSB · 10-04-2023, 03:24 PM

Just to satisfy myself, I did a search on E-book Software looking for "polish books" with the quotes and user name kovidgoyal. The results compared to my Google Search results were pretty much useless.

Karellen · 10-04-2023, 03:40 PM

The mobileread results seem spot on with result #2 being the thread that is needed...

j.p.s · 10-04-2023, 04:09 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by DNSB

My personal experience has been that unless I am searching for posts by a specific poster, external search far more often than not produces more useful search results.

Circumstances and experiences differ, I frequently am filtering on thread prefix, tag, title, and/or individual poster.

10-03-2023, 11:30 AM	#1
LordP Zealot Posts: 139 Karma: 1341124 Join Date: Aug 2010 Device: Kindle 3	Stupid question Does the search function in Mobileread work? I can't count the times I have done searches and not gotten a single good hit. Today I was looking for the "Polish Books" plugin, in the Calibre > Plugins subdirectory and I can't find bupkus. I basically get the whole damn subreddit. It's ridiculous that other people are able to search and I feel like an idiot. Please tell me I'm not a complete idiot. No, don't say "You have bits missing", don't do it. Anyway, I was going to make a request to the author, and even offer a cash bonus, and I can't find the person. Dammit.

10-04-2023, 03:24 PM	#13
DNSB Bibliophagist Posts: 36,391 Karma: 145735554 Join Date: Jul 2010 Location: Vancouver Device: Kobo Sage, Libra Colour, Lenovo M8 FHD, Paperwhite 4, Tolino epos	Just to satisfy myself, I did a search on E-book Software looking for "polish books" with the quotes and user name kovidgoyal. The results compared to my Google Search results were pretty much useless. Last edited by DNSB; 10-04-2023 at 03:29 PM.

10-04-2023, 03:40 PM	#14
Karellen Wizard Posts: 1,156 Karma: 4911876 Join Date: Sep 2021 Location: Australia Device: Kobo Libra 2	The mobileread results seem spot on with result #2 being the thread that is needed... Attached Thumbnails

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10-03-2023, 12:34 PM	#3
LordP Zealot Posts: 139 Karma: 1341124 Join Date: Aug 2010 Device: Kindle 3	Thanks for the info. My take is that the search function in Mobilereads is terrible, and it is entirely unsurprising that I have never had a successful search - good to know. And thanks for the tip about searching. All I wanted to ask is if "Polish Books" could have one added function: Improve Contrast. I guess I'll try to contact Kovid.

10-03-2023, 02:05 PM	#5
Cactus Chef Addict Posts: 316 Karma: 4610154 Join Date: Apr 2019 Device: Kobo Sage, Kobo Clara HD, Galaxy Tab S5e, Kindle 4th Gen	Man, I read this thread five times before I realized you were asking about "polish books" and not "Polish books" (i.e. this plugin does not notify you about the latest Olga Tokarczuk novel). Anyway! To answer your questions: 1) The search function in Mobileread does work, it's just not as precise as you were hoping for. I repeated your steps and searched under the plugins section for "polish books", and indeed every resulting topic did at least contain the word 'polish' and 'books' somewhere in the message, but not always together, and therein lies the problem. Putting "polish books" together in quotes didn't do much to improve the results. 2) Per ZodWallop's reference, you may have had trouble finding the plugin in the plugins form, because it looks like Kovid actually announced the feature in the Calibre general forum. So essentially, you were looking in the wrong place (even if you had good reason to think that it would be in the plug-ins subforum). 3) The two workarounds suggested by DNSB and ZodWallop may help you in the future, although they're not technically using MobileRead's search functions as they are using external websites to search within MobileRead. But, to some extent I agree with their approach of using the right tool for the job, rather than bemoaning the state of default features on an antiquated BBS forum. This site looks like crap on mobile, but, that's unlikely to change anytime soon, either, so, I stopped expending energy whining about it.

10-03-2023, 03:16 PM	#6
theducks Well trained by Cats Posts: 29,930 Karma: 55705602 Join Date: Aug 2009 Location: The Central Coast of California Device: Kobo Libra2,Kobo Aura2v1, K4NT(Fixed: New Bat.), Galaxy Tab A	Polish is not a (user) Plugin. It is BUILT IN. The Icon is a hand broom (duster). You may need to add it to a toolbar via Preferences: Toolbars & menus:

10-04-2023, 06:30 AM	#9
LordP Zealot Posts: 139 Karma: 1341124 Join Date: Aug 2010 Device: Kindle 3	I went into the "Plugins" sub and used "Search this forum". It seems more than one person uses external searches, so that's what I'll be trying from, now on.

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