Changing the Search View minimum word length

When searching using a Search View the minimum word length you can search for is 3 characters; a search word shorter than this will be ignored.

Warnings

It is possible to make this limit shorter, but doing so is not advised - with a lower limit:

• Indexes will be larger and take longer to create
• Ranking of search results will be less accurate
• The value may be reset when you subsequently upgrade your software

Method

To change the value, you need open a command line console on the server (on Windows 7 or Windows 2008 you will need to run as Administrator).

Run:

NET STOP NCSERVICE

NET STOP W3SVC

NET STOP NCMYSQLSERVER

In the /neatcomponents directory, take a backup of the file myNc.cnf

Edit, using Notepad or a similar text editor, the myNc.cnf file:

find the line:

set-variable = ft_min_word_len=3

and change the 3 to 2

Save the file

Run:

NET START NCMYSQLSERVER

NET START W3SVC

NET START NCSERVICE

Back in your site, you need to force the rebuilding of the full text indexes. This normally happens automatically, but in this case we have made a change the system is unaware of, so we need to force it. The simplest way to do this is to open the Search View configuration, and remove all the references to the fields to be search, save, and then add them back in.

You may find general searching is disrupted until the indexes have been rebuilt.