(Redirected from Search)
- "Search" redirects here. For the Scratch Wiki search page, see Special:Search.
The Scratch website has a custom search bar for easily navigating and exploring various projects and studios. The search bar is located at the top of every page on the website.
After Hour of Code 2013, the search engine was replaced by the Google Custom Search Engine due to increasing traffic. The regular search engine was put back in July 2016, despite the announcement that it would be put back at the end of the event.[1]
The search engine looks similar to the Explore page.
Update History
In 2016, the search engine was updated to make it show more relevant search results and usable by Chinese Scratchers. The previous search engine used Google, which is blocked by the firewall of mainland China, while the current search engine uses a custom search. [2]
The 2016 update spawned many complaints and protests,[3][4] due to the limited functionality of the engine. Flaws included irrelevant results popping up, very high project statistics, popular projects coming in first, and the inability to search for users and forum topics. The Scratch Team stated that they plan to add functionality back to the search bar.[2]
Searching
To search for something, one must type a keyword or desired item in the search bar at the top. Hitting the 'enter' or 'return' key or clicking on the magnifying glass in the search bar will open up a separate webpage where the search results are rendered and displayed. If there are no results, it will say "Nothing found".[5]
Keywords commonly used by Not For Everyone projects, such as "Slenderman" and "FNAF", will not show any results at all, even if there are For Everyone projects for the keywords.
Searching a username will show all projects the user made, but will also include other projects that include that username as a keyword.[6]
Categories
Search results are divided into categories in order to better organize searches. The new search bar only has two categories (projects and studios), unlike the Google Custom Search, which had 5.
Projects
This is the default category when a search is submitted. It only displays Scratch project results related to the characters or terms that were searched.
Studios
This category displays studios only as results of the specified search.
Popular, Trending, and Recent
There is also a drop-down menu with the options of "Trending" and "Popular". This is another way to get their wanted results.
Popular
This will show the most popular projects/studios of any time, based on the search. Popular is the default setting.
Trending
This will show the projects/studios that are currently getting more attention than others. For some, this may also be the default setting.
Recent
This will show the most recent projects that were made.
Clearing the Search Bar
To clear the search bar, click the search tab, and click the crosses at the end of your previous searches. There is no way to clear them all at once, and it is not a common complaint.
Tips on Searching
Sometimes it can be difficult to find something that is wanted through the Search Bar. In those scenarios, here are some tips:
- Only use keywords (words that are important to the search).
- Narrow search queries down to what is known.
- Try several variations of the words in the search.
- Correctly spell words used search phrases.
See Also
References
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