Exclude category from search

**jmamazo** · June 20, 2016, 2:16pm

Hello guys

Is there a way to exclude a category from “search” I mean forum wide. I know I can use advanced filter but most users just dont bother about checking those and we would like to always exclude a category from search results.

Thanks

**erlend_sh** · June 20, 2016, 1:10pm

Do you mean exclude the topics in a specific category from searches?

**jmamazo** · June 20, 2016, 1:13pm

yes, completely ignoring it our dream is much more complicated than that, like (ignore it unless it hast 3 posts for example, but I know thats too much to ask)
Best

**erlend_sh** · June 20, 2016, 2:20pm

The closest thing to this is probably “Unlisted categories”, which is a new feature under consideration.

**codinghorror** · June 20, 2016, 9:37pm

Unlisted would not affect search though. That should not even be on the table as it significantly complicates things. (category security would affect it anyway, as usual)

**sam** · June 21, 2016, 12:45am

I definitely want to add a feature that allows admins to set “search priority” for categories, so, for example: #faq always gets a bump and shows up first.

I think this is a better feature than totally removing results from search, if users are allowed to read the topics, why not allow them to find them @jmamazo ?

**jmamazo** · June 21, 2016, 8:28am

I totally agree with you, but then it would be better if category XXX is always last to show, so the most interesting categories are always on top of the search.
Our use-case:
Every time our web-application creates a project a post is created announcing the creation, this allow us to have comments in that project inside our website. Then we have a real forum with way more interesting categories where people are usually active in topics not always related to the projects. and then when you have 1000s of projects then you have a lots of posts that “real forum users” are not interested (95% of time).

**SidV** · October 4, 2016, 1:02pm

Hello, I need to exlude a sub-category from searching.

Example:

status:noreplies category:5

But, category 5, has got two more sub-categories (6 and 7).
How can I search only threads in category 5, and don’t show the others discussions in categories 6 and 7?

**cpradio** · October 4, 2016, 3:10pm

I don’t think that is possible yet. From what I can tell, when you specify category:5 or #category5, it will search both that category and any categories that have it as its parent.

Relevant code:

github.com

discourse/discourse/blob/master/lib/search.rb#L314-L344


    posts.where('posts.user_id IN (SELECT ub.user_id FROM user_badges ub WHERE ub.badge_id = ?)', badge_id)
  else
    posts.where("1 = 0")
  end
end


advanced_filter(/^in:(likes|bookmarks)$/) do |posts, match|
  if @guardian.user
    post_action_type = PostActionType.types[:like] if match == "likes"
    post_action_type = PostActionType.types[:bookmark] if match == "bookmarks"


    posts.where("posts.id IN (
                          SELECT pa.post_id FROM post_actions pa
                          WHERE pa.user_id = #{@guardian.user.id} AND
                                pa.post_action_type_id = #{post_action_type} AND
                                deleted_at IS NULL
                       )")
  end
end

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**tgxworld** · April 5, 2019, 5:29am