clubSEARCH

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This is clubSEARCH, an interactive search-able database of over 16,000 clubs. If you type in your search criteria into the "Search For" text box and press enter, you will see a list of clubs that match your query (either with their description, user name or key words, depending on which check boxes are selected). You will need to press the "Next Page" button or the right arrow key to see subsequent clubs after the first. On the results page, click the user name or avatar of the club to open a new window. I designed this as an idea for when club accounts are introduced on dA, and also to fill the gap while they are being developed

To search for groups, please use groupSEARCH

If you felt this search was useful to you, and would like to share it with other users, you may find the following useful:

For signatures and journals copy the following text:
<a href="http://parallellogic.deviantart.com/art/clubSEARCH-93970669">clubSEARCH</a> & <a href="http://groups.deviantart.com/">groupSEARCH</a>

Type :thumb93970669: to get

To add a club, please leave the following information in a comment with the EXACT same formatting:
UserName@@Description&&KeyWords
For example:
teentitans@@The largest Teen Titans Club on all DA&&Robin Starfire Raven Beast Boy Cyborg
cartoon-obsessions@@a club dedicated to every toon out there!&&cartoons

You are welcome to list multiple clubs in your comment: one club per line (please do not skip lines).

Please DO NOT include the :icon: or :dev: tags for the club's name in your comment. I will copy and paste your comment directly into my program and these tags will slow me down considerably . Also, please do not use the :dev: or :icon: tags in the club's description or keywords for the same reason.

Please note emoticons will not display properly in clubSEARCH and should not be used in the description or key words.

Uhm... I have a long list of clubs I would like to add to clubSEARCH, but I don't want to type out descriptions for each one, can I still add them? If you would like to add a lot of clubs at once without descriptions, please type them out all on one line using the :icon: tag for each. I have a separate file I will paste these clubs into. They will not have key words or descriptions when viewed in clubSEARCH.

For example:

How do I edit a club's description or key words? If you have found a club that does not have a description or is lacking keywords, please follow the procedure for adding a club listed above. The program that manages clubSEARCH automatically adds a club with a description over the original entry if the original entry is lacking a description or key words (eg, the club displays "[No Comment]" or "[No Key Words]" in clubSEARCH).

How do I remove a club? If you find any clubs that have been banned please leave a comment with just the user name of the club (WITHOUT the :dev: or :icon: tags). Also, if you run across a club that has clearly stated on their front page journal that they have died or been abandoned, feel free to report these clubs as well. You may report multiple clubs: one per line in your comment (please do not skip lines)

For example:
Anime-Art
Fullmetal-artists
TwilightXEspio-fans
WeAreNarutoFans

This was a quick reference feature I devised to quickly determine how active a club was at a glance. The colors are assigned as follows:
White: Active in the last week
Light Green: Active within the last month
Dark Green: Active within the last two months
Yellow: Active within the last year
Red: Active over a year ago, but after 2004
Black: Banned, has no journals, or was last active before 2004

The Avatars and Stats won't display! This may be due to your firewall settings. This program communicates with a remote server to load the pages on DeviantART (with clubs stats & avatars). I find that temporarily lowering my firewall security allows me to view these features properly. However, this option may not be the solution for everyone, so I have included a "Basic Display" option on the search page if you do not want to or are not able to see the avatars and stats.

The Avatars and Stats still won't display! Recently, I have found that the server I have my files stored on may also be to blame, which is outside of my control . You may check the status of the server here: [link] my files are stored on Stoli: the top line of lights. If all the lights on the top row are green... then I blame the internet for not working

I thought it was kinda silly that no one had made one of these kind of search engines yet, or at least the ones I found did not seem to have lasted long or listed many users . Shortly after I started running #TheList I found myself repeatedly referencing my internal database (used for the programs managing the club) to find clubs. My thoughts: Huh, it'd be neat if other users could access this. It'd be even better if the search could go through a lot of other directories. And I've been planning to learn ActionScript all summer anyway...

It'd also be cool if and when club accounts are implemented on dA that an official search engine be available to search through them

More about the search itself:
The search is not case sensitive. It considers a partial hit a successful hit (eg if you search for "car", a club with the word "cartoon" in it's description is considered a hit [or in the user name or key words, I'm simplifying here]).

I have been thinking about implementing a "NOT" modifier, so if you type "car NOT cartoon", the search will display results with the word "car" but without "cartoon" in their description. If you feel this would be useful to you, please let me know.

Entered in the ARTicul8! Contest

I'll keep a record here of ideas I've found particularly interesting, useful and feasible that I may include in future updates to clubSEARCH. Feel free to suggest your ideas in a comment
--Remove banned clubs (substantial code is required for this, thus I didn't include it in the original version )
~jibirelle: Display the number of watchers for each club
`AreteEirene Make a secret page for directory admins so that they can paste in multiple club names and then have an ordered list of clubs printed out in order of activity [link]
`AreteEirene Increase the precision of the activity analysis (look at date of last comment and last submission as well as the current method) [link]
*Patt-Ytto Add a scroll bar for long club descriptions
`Age2003 Make a help tab for the activity analysis within the application.
~Red-Bananas Remove emoticons and icons from descriptions so that they do not interfere with searches

16,506 unique clubs/groups listed as of 8/29/10
49 directories and one user utilized for their listing of clubs... What? =Before-I-Sleep started and runs over 1000 clubs
3 weeks of solid work (around 200 to 250 hours)
5 languages used: Java, ActionScript 3.0, XML, PHP, HTML

`summaro: for helping me extensively with remote server communication
All the users who left comments on the WIP

Questions and Comments strongly encouraged