Audiobus: Use your music apps together.

What is Audiobus?Audiobus is an award-winning music app for iPhone and iPad which lets you use your other music apps together. Chain effects on your favourite synth, run the output of apps or Audio Units into an app like GarageBand or Loopy, or select a different audio interface output for each app. Route MIDI between apps — drive a synth from a MIDI sequencer, or add an arpeggiator to your MIDI keyboard — or sync with your external MIDI gear. And control your entire setup from a MIDI controller.

Download on the App Store

Audiobus is the app that makes the rest of your setup better.

Your feedback please: forum search

edited January 2018 in Support and Feedback

Hi guys,

I’ve had a couple of people express their disgruntlement for the DuckDuckGo forum search - I’m curious, what do people generally prefer? I originally replaced the built in search after getting feedback that it wasn’t returning helpful results, but I’m open to going back to how it was.

You can try the built in version by entering the search URL manually: https://forum.audiob.us/search?Search=search+term

Search
  1. Which do you prefer?29 votes
    1. DuckDuckGo (current setup)
      48.28%
    2. Built-in Search
      51.72%
«1

Comments

  • edited January 2018

    I don’t know nothing about forum’s technicalities, but the most pleasurable boards to navigate imho it’s “lines”:
    https://llllllll.co/

  • edited January 2018

    I didn’t know I could enter the forum search URL manually. :) I just backed that up to my faves.

    I truly can’t stand DuckDuckGo, because of the fact I can never find what I’m looking for. When I used the built-in search function, I’d have a vague timeframe of when something I want to find was posted. Sure it required some scrolling, but I could find what I was looking for 99% of the time.

    Of course, I could just use time modifiers in DuckDuckGo just like anyone can use the “site:https://forum.audiob.us/” modifier, right? However, even with that, I only found what I searched for twice out of countless failures. The trick of it is, I find the chronological order of the built-in search far more useful than the haphazard order DuckDuckGo returns results. Even then, Google is still a far more robust and accurate search engine, and I’ve had about 75%-80% success rate with it. It’s not 99% like with the built-in search, but far better than DuckDuckGo by a mile, even if Google tracks people. :lol:

  • edited January 2018

    Regarding search, Where do I find a search button on the site when using my iPhone. I read and post questions on my long commute into Tokyo (thank you Audiobus forums!), but cant for the life of me find a search button in the iPhone layout. Can one be added?

    Just saw the link Michael posted. Thanks, will use that.

  • Michael I prefer the current search (the one with the duck I guess), for exactly the same reason @ jwmmakerofmusic prefers for the other search method: I can find what I’m looking for easier. When I’m searching the forum, I’m not looking for a timeframe, I’m looking for a thread I vaguely remember. For example, if I type in “ iM-1” into the duck system, I get threads about that app and it’s pretty easy for me to find the right one. In the other method, I find a list of every time somebody mentioned that app regardless of topic, and I makes it harder for me. I guess different folks search different ways...

  • Definitely prefer the current system. I occasionally revert to google + site but usually find what I'm looking for with DDG.

  • If I had to choose, it would be the duckie, but I'll defer to the forum and not vote.

    My ideal would be Google's quality results with Duck Duck Go's privacy policy, but that's just wishful thinking.

  • The obvious solution is a means of just giving me what I have in mind, only as an already-written page. None of this faffing about with irrelevant other choices, just give me the one I want in the first place, no need for a list of them, I want the one I end up being satisfied with.

    Modern search engines (or find motors, as I’d call them) seem to focus on the incorrect part of the process. The clue is in the name ‘search engine’. I don’t want to search, thanks. I want to find. Google seems obsessed with presenting me with reams of choices, so that I have the raw material to proceed to search. I didn’t want to search. I don’t want a search engine. I want you to go and find it for me and bring it to me without me having to choose and decide and sequentially process a list. That’s what I think the computer should do. I want a find motor, not a search engine. I don’t think there is one yet.

  • edited January 2018

    The internal search works ok, and I don’t mind DDG, but I end up using google with site:forum.audiob.us more often, if I’m doing some kind of research.

    I really wish there was an option to search only thread titles (specially if you’re looking for older threads, you have to go through pages and pages of mentions of the app), and I can’t see a way to use the search in the mobile version (I use the desktop site on the ipad so no big deal for me).

    The thing is discussions often get sidetracked, with comments often straying to other apps, sometimes informative comments that should be linked to the original app, so although this site is a plethora of information, it is a bit spread out and mixed.

    What could perhaps be more useful, would be some kind of tag system where you could tag posts, ideally even individual comments, with keywords like app name, tutorial, tips&tricks etc. This would make it really easy to filter the forum to find specific information, and I’m sure many people would go to the trouble of going through their old posts and comments and apply tags where it was deserved. This or we could build a wiki :wink:

    Anyway, this is just my .02€ this forum is amazing as it is and such a great service to the community that I’m not even gonna cast a vote.

    And finally, since we’re somehow on the topic of site changes, l wouldn’t mind at all if you guys started monetizing the forum with ads or something (l wouldn’t even mind if you’d start mining monero :smiley: ). I realize this service costs money and it’s very generous of you to offer it for free. Thanks a lot!

  • The user and all related content has been deleted.
  • edited January 2018
    The user and all related content has been deleted.
  • I think duck is fine. I have it as a default search engine on my phone and it's fine. Not ideal for images/videos I feel but otherwise cool.

  • A little of topic, but why no search from mobile browser (safari)? Or am I missing something obvious :-)

  • DuckDuckSux. Built in works so much better, please bring it back. Just type in something specific and DuckDuck presents you with a random list with items 3 or more years ago first and more recent post willy-nilly way down the search result resulting in lots of scrolling. With built in you get the most recent item going back in time. It makes so much more sense and results in faster search. Unfortunately in Safari iPhone there is no search option.

  • I cannot find the answer I am looking for :D

    Where even is the search ?

  • When trying to search for something in this forum, I've had the best luck using google's site search, ie:

    site:forum.audiob.us "search term here"

    The forum's built in search couldn't handle multiple word searches, ( "cubasis auv3" would return results with either "cubasis" OR "auv3", not with BOTH)

    The duck duck go search seems to do a poor job of prioritizing newer results.

  • The more I think about it, the more I think switching the forum search to Google from DuckDuckBlows is the solution that would work best. I still prefer the built-in search, but it doesn’t work for everybody. I’ve had better results with Google when compared to DuckDuckGo regardless, so Google would be the right choice for a default forum search engine. I still got the built-in one saved as a bookmark, so that’s a good compromise. Cheers. :smile:

  • Google? Who are they?

  • Keep the duck. I like it :D

  • Well, looks like we're split exactly 50/50 =) Might switch over to Google, though, given feedback.

    Good question on the missing search on mobile theme issue...no idea why they didn't include it! It's a bit beyond me to hack it in right now, though.

  • @Michael said:
    Well, looks like we're split exactly 50/50 =) Might switch over to Google, though, given feedback.

    :+1:

  • Duck Duck Go, all the way. Google is not our friend.

  • Depending on your browser, you could still use a site-specific js injection to change the search bar back to DDG. Here's how to do it in Safari.

    The script in question is:

    $(".search-form form").submit(function() { window.location = 'https://www.google.com/search?q=' + encodeURI($('#Form_Search').val()) + '+site%3Ahttps%3A%2F%2Fforum.audiob.us%2F&ia=web'; return false; });

    ...So you could change that to whatever you like

  • edited January 2018

    @Michael said:
    Well, looks like we're split exactly 50/50 =) Might switch over to Google, though, given feedback.

    Good question on the missing search on mobile theme issue...no idea why they didn't include it! It's a bit beyond me to hack it in right now, though.

    The built-in option is my preference, though some form of filtering (e.g. 'search for users', 'search in forum section') would be beneficial.

    As others have mentioned, there's no search at all on the mobile site. Looking at the software providers site (https://vanillaforums.com/en/features/mobile/) there's an icon for search on the main menu in their screengrabs. I notice you're not using a standard ('hamburger') mobile menu for this forum, so maybe the search icon would show up if you implemented one. Worth a try.

  • That is annoying! I've not changed the default setup for mobile, just seems a bit limited, maybe it's the open source version.

    Instead I've replaced it with a new theme...looks good so far

  • @Michael said:
    That is annoying! I've not changed the default setup for mobile, just seems a bit limited, maybe it's the open source version.

    Instead I've replaced it with a new theme...looks good so far

    I almost lost my breakfast. You could warn those of us with delicate infrastructure before making big changes. :smile:

  • Hahah! Hard and fast, that's how I like it!

  • edited January 2018

    @Michael said:
    That is annoying! I've not changed the default setup for mobile, just seems a bit limited, maybe it's the open source version.

    Instead I've replaced it with a new theme...looks good so far

    The 'hamburger' menu is linking to my profile details at the moment, and page/section links still displayed. Don't know what theme you're using, but somewhere in the menu settings there should be an option to assign menus to the mobile dropdown, and hopefully you should also be able to add a search link - either via the theme or forum plugin options.

    Hmmm....might be an additional extension, there's an old one here: https://open.vanillaforums.com/addon/mobilesearch-plugin

  • Is the search as it stands now today working as intended?
    If I type in a search word I end up at duck duck go where it seems to have searched for nothing specific at all in audiob.us forum – not my original search word, which seems to have been lost on the way.

  • Indeed, although I welcome choosing it over Google, DuckDuckGo often gives results that don't contain the search strings - can built-in search be worse if done right?

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