I really like our search. It’s up there on every page, automatically focused when a page is loaded. It’s quick and it searches for movies, actors and users. It’s my gateway to the whole site. Enter two or more characters into the field and the search is on. However, as the number of movies, actors and users on FilmGator grows, you might want to type just a little more than that to make sure you get what you are looking for. That said, it is rarely necessary to type the full name of whatever you are trying to find.

Because I like the search so much, I thought I’d give it some additional capabilities. I ended up defining 3 keywords that have a special meaning:

*online* - shows the 10 most recently active users

*friends* - shows up to 10 of your most recently active friends

*random* - shows 10 random movies, 10 random actors and 10 random users

(it is actually enough to just type *o, *f or *r)

I hope everyone takes some time to really get to know the search function as it is an essential part of the FilmGator experience!

Two interesting new developments:

2. Lauri, or rather nmd, the lead architect himself has also worked diligently with some neat features that are presently partly under the surface, but can be accessed through the users’ mini-popup-profile. If you’ve already rated some movies and want to see some nice statistics, then go search for your own nick and find out what the feature does.

Stay tuned for more!