At Stovebolt, we have a search function that is designed to only return results for the Stovebolt site. It searches ALL Stovebolt pages, including Techtips, Events, Gallery, Features, and the Forum posts. You can find the search function in the left-hand column (magnifying glass) or by clicking on Search in the menu at the top-right portion of your screen. Or you can bookmark it and go directly there. Stovebolt Search.
Step-by-step instructions for how to search just the forums are in Rustoholic's posts below.
Last edited by Peggy M; Tue Aug 16 2022 11:08 PM. Reason: Search info and page updated :)
Based on Don “down2sea” McLendon's "How to Search the Stovebolt Site" document in 2007, I expanded and updated the information about how to search the Stovebolt forums.
Click (or select) the magnifying glass search icon in the upper right corner of each page.
You can 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.
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. Here is an example of search results that show the previews: [img]https://www.stovebolt.com/ubbthread...5038/filename/6-SearchResultsExample.jpg[/img]
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 Rustoholic; Tue Aug 16 2022 10:43 PM. Reason: added verbiage
Thanks Dean for doing this and for helping with the update of the Search webpage. We've link the "forums" portion back to this thread. And included a better explanation for searching the entire site.
Hope this is helpful. It has been to me.
Peggy M “After all, tomorrow is another day!”—Margaret Mitchell, Gone with the Wind Share knowledge and communicate it effectively. ~ Elihu
