Click (or select) the magnifying glass search icon in the upper right corner of each page.
Do a 'simple' search by putting your search criteria in the little window that pops up and hitting Enter.
To access the Advanced Forum Search window, select the Advanced Forum Search link/phrase in the little popup window, as shown in the first image below.
The rest of this post describes how to use the Advanced Forum Search.
Advance Forum Search
Select the Forum or Forums that you want to search from the list on the left.
- The default is to search all forums (All Forums is highlighted, as shown in the second image below). - Selecting one forum will search in just that forum. - Selecting a category will search all the forums within that category (for example The Shop Area -----) - Selecting multiple forums will search only within those selected forums. To select more than one forum, hold the ctrl key down when you click (select) the additional forums after selecting the first forum to be searched. See the third image below for an example of selecting two forums to search.
To the right of "Forum(s) to search" enter your search criteria (a keyword or keywords) into the "Keywords Search Terms" field.
- Entering a single keyword will search for all instances of that word. - Entering 2 or more words will search for EACH word, as if there were an OR operator between the keywords. So entering motor mount will search for posts containing motor OR mount. - Entering 2 or more words WITH PLUS SIGNS will search as if there is an AND operator between the keywords. So entering +motor +mount will search for posts that contain motor AND mount but they do NOT have to be adjacent to one another in the text string. - Entering 2 or more words IN QUOTATION MARKS will search for the exact phrase as entered. Entering "motor mount" will search for posts that contain the PHRASE motor mount and will not return any results, or posts, that contains only one of the words. - Entering 2 or more words with A MINUS sign will exclude words from the search. For example, entering +motor -mount will search for posts which have the word motor in them and DO NOT have the word mount.
You can mix and match search operators. For example, entering "motor mount" -235 would return posts containing the PHRASE motor mount and NOT containing the term 235.
- Entering "motor mount" +216 -235 would return posts containing the PHRASE motor mount AND containing the term 216 but NOT containing the term 235, as shown in the fourth image below.
Below the Keyword Search Terms box you can choose whether you want to search just the subject or the subject AND the body of the posts.
In the "By Display Name" section, you can enter a username as a search criteria. This can be done with or without keywords, so entering +mig +welding in the keywords field and the username of MPandC would return posts containing the term mig AND the term welding posted by the user MPandC. See the fifth image below as an example of doing this search. Leaving the keyword field blank and just entering the Username in this section will return all the posts made by that particular Username.
Next select a date range. You can search for posts newer or older than a certain criteria (15 years being the maximum). Narrowing down the search time will increase the speed of the results, although the search is very fast in either case.
You can choose how many results per page you wish to view. The default is 25.
If you like, you can choose to view a preview of the post’s body section. If selected, this option will result in the display of the first 50 words or so from the body of each post. An example of search results that show the previews is the last image below.
When you are finished defining your search criteria click the "Submit" button. Note that searching for words with less than 4 characters will return unpredictable results. Also, the search engine omits certain common words like the, be, is, or etcetera.
Happy searching! Dean
Last edited by Peggy M; 02/04/20246:11 PM. Reason: updated
