17 September 2012, 18:18

Hi,

Have anyone here noticed the difference in the search function between the Find Friends view and the Admin User search view? 

I have a student with the name of Kim Talosaga Te'o. I can find him no problem in the User search view in the Admin Panel with the key word of Talosaga. However, it doesn't seem to appear if I do the same search in the Find Friends view.

Is the implementation different for these two views?

18 September 2012, 6:35

Hello Shen,

What version of Mahara are you using? Since Mahara 1.5 there is the "Exact search" which works on the user search field, see http://manual.mahara.org/en/1.5/site_admin/extensions.html#new15-search-internal-search

If you have that turned on then Mahara needs an exact match to the name in the user search field. This is complicated in your case because the student has three names. If that is the name in his display name field, then putting quotation marks around the entire name should help.

Cheers

Kristina

18 September 2012, 20:13

Thanks Kristina, We are on 1.5.1 at the moment and the exact search is turned off - we don't have huge number of users and no one complained about the search speed yet. Does this search setting apply to both the Find Friends search view and the User search view for administrators? There seems to be a different implementation behind these two search views. Is it possible to make the Find Friends search view return the same search results as the one in the admin panel?

20 September 2012, 14:59

Hello Shen,

You should be able to change the friend search to the one used for admins in the user search with a bit of customization. The admin search can do more because admins need to be able to find users no matter whether they have provided a display name or not.

One other thing to check would be whether you allowed your users to hide their real name. That might also contribute to not being able to find them: http://manual.mahara.org/en/1.5/site_admin/config_site.html#user-settings (#3). The admin can always search for real names.

Cheers

Kristina