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Topic: Search Function Tips/Instructions (Read 1003 times) previous topic - next topic
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Search Function Tips/Instructions
The main search function is on the home page, top left side under the drop down COMMUNITY. Click on COMMUNITY and you will see SEARCH. Click on SEARCH and you will see "Set Search Parameters", which is the box in which you describe the boundaries of your search.

1. In the "Search for" box, type the description of your search. For example: "color matching". Note that you should put double quotes around your search words.

2. By user: In the box, place a member's name if you searching for a particular member's post.

3. In the "Match" dropdown box, you have the choice of "match all words" or "match any words".

4. In the "Search order" dropdown box, you have 5 choices. Most folks will use "Most relevant results first".

5. "Options" You have 2 choices.

6. "Message age:" between   0   and   9999   days. The smaller the spread, the fewer the results.

NOTES:

The search function uses morphology (the forms of words) functions to normalize words. If you were searching for "color matching" the function considers matching to be "match", "matches", "matching" and would find the terms "color match", "color matches" and "color matching" and maybe others.

The results page does not properly highlight words that were found based on morphology and phonetic algorithms, so sometimes the results look like two separate words and not the two words which were requested. Separate results could be shown for "color" and "match" and "color matching". In other words, exact matching is not always possible.

This search function is not Google and perhaps not as precise as we would like. However, it is the only one available on this platform and we are fortunate not to incur administrative charges.




Formerly: 2002 30' IB
Re: Search Function Tips/Instructions
Reply #1 –
To add, you can also refine the search by member, so if you are looking for a particular member's post on a topic, you can put that in as well.

(Professor Plum, in the library, with the candlestick  ;)  )