Extended Search Options And Archives

I’ve put some time into coding the search engine on the Web site past what features ship with the software. Clicking the magnifying glass (top right), which activates the search box (on mobile you just open the menu), gives you a text entry box, dropdown selector and go button… The dropdown is the important bit:

By default the search will activate across the RSC Web site as a whole covering any software, cars, tracks, news items, articles, etc. If you want to search the current forums, you can now select it. News items only? Select that. Articles only? Software? Bikes? Cars? Tracks? Select and search. I’ve also begun to index the YouTube videos on the RSC channel and they’ll also be 100% searchable via the dropdown (some are indexed, try it).

But perhaps the coolest options appear at the bottom of the dropdown… You can select to search a backup of the old RSC forum with posts between 2001-2009, recently lost SRMZ forum, rec.autos.simulators newsgroup and even Blackhole Motorsports Web site. The BHMS Web site, accessible here, is a wonderful insight into sim racing past and a very good percentage of pages are included in this archive. Many of the downloads are, too.

I am gradually working through some archives and will bring some more old Web sites back online where possible. I’ll let Google index them (this is still in-progress for most of what has been mentioned), which allows my search functionality to work, and we can begin to rebuild some of what was lost when BHMS, RSC, VirtualR (which I have a 100% backup of) and other sites were lost. The long term goal is to re-post much of the information into the main RSC Web site so that searching becomes a last resort.

As I add archived Web sites you’ll be able to find information right here.