This one has been nagging at me for ages. phpBB gives you a search for posts, but there is nothing at all for private messages. My own inbox is sat at 1000 messages spread over 40 pages, so any time I needed to dig out something from 6 months ago it meant clicking through page after page squinting at subject lines. Half of them are similar subjects, so even that didn't narrow it down much. Utterly maddening, and I know I'm not the only one who has hit it.
So now there is a proper search for them.
What it does
- Searches the message text as well as the subject, so you can find a message by something that was said in it rather than having to remember what it was called.
- Partial words match, so typing "ster" will find "Falcon booster".
- Search all of your folders at once, or pick just one. Any custom folders you have made are included.
- Results show a snippet of the message with your search words highlighted, so you can see at a glance whether it is the one you wanted.
- Click the subject and it takes you straight to that message.
There are two ways in.
Go to your User Control Panel, then the Private messages tab, and there is a "Search messages" link in the menu down the left hand side.
Or use the quick search box that now sits at the top of your message list. Type your words in, hit Search, and it drops you on the results.
Who can use it
This is for registered users only. Newly registered users do not have private messages on the forum yet, so the search will not show up for them either. If that is you, the easiest way to move up is to post an "about me" topic and join in with a few threads. Once you are a full member you get private messages and the search along with them.
On security, since these are private messages
Worth saying up front how this works, because it is the first thing I would want to know myself.
The search only ever looks at your own messages. Whose messages get searched is worked out from your login session and nothing else, so there is no number in the address bar to fiddle with and no way to go poking about in somebody else's inbox. On top of that, the links in the results go through phpBB's own message viewer, which checks all over again that the message belongs to you before it will show you anything. Two separate locks, and neither one is relying on the other to do its job.
It also does not hand me or any other admin a way to search your messages. Everybody only ever gets their own inbox.
Bugs
It is brand new, so there will no doubt be something I have missed. If it does anything odd, or a search finds nothing when you are sure it should have, post it here and I will get it sorted.
