Minimum characters for searches is too large.

[Cheeseybacon]

I tried to do a search for "HK P30" in the pistols forum just a moment ago only to be greeted with a message essentially stating that "HK" was under the minimum number of characters required for a search and that the search was canceled. A search for just "P30" also produced the same message.

When did the minmum number of characters for a search become 4? Has it always been 4 characters, or did this just happen recently with the site makeover? That number seems rather large to me, especially considering all of the TLAs (three letter acronymns) that are often the subjects of discussion on this forum.

Can this number be bumped down? At least to 3?

(A range report for the HK P30 will follow as soon as this is corrected. :-p )

[NineseveN]

I tried to do a search for "HK P30" in the pistols forum just a moment ago only to be greeted with a message essentially stating that "HK" was under the minimum number of characters required for a search and that the search was canceled. A search for just "P30" also produced the same message.

When did the minmum number of characters for a search become 4? Has it always been 4 characters, or did this just happen recently with the site makeover? That number seems rather large to me, especially considering all of the TLAs (three letter acronymns) that are often the subjects of discussion on this forum.

Can this number be bumped down? At least to 3?

(A range report for the HK P30 will follow as soon as this is corrected. :-p )

For short words like HK, just use the wildcard. If I were to search for HK P30, I'd simply type HK* P30* or just p30*.

[awkx]

Hmmm, I thought that the old vBulletin search was disabled, but apparently it's still enabled for subforums.

Anyhow, I'd suggest using the PAFOA Google search option towards the top. Try using

"Discussion > Pistols" p30

to search for the text "p30" in the Pistols subforum.

[danp]

There's a couple ways to sneak yourself into the old search, but at this point it is completely unsupported. The minimum characters is there to prevent thee database from crapping itself on searches for strings that are too broad.