Shivercide

There seems to be a lot of trouble with searching for things around here, and many of those who do use the search seem to have trouble finding what they're looking for. Therefore I've decided to create a tutorial that shows there is nothing really wrong with this board's beautiful Search Function, and explain just how to use it.


First of all, there are a few different ways you can search for things.

The Common, "Easy" Way

I really, REALLY hope that everyone already knows this, but there is a Search option on the toolbar near the top of the screen. Using the box that drops down will give you the most generalized results:







Looking at the second of the two pictures, you will also see there is an option to show only thread titles, or just posts. If you're looking for a specific thread, then of course you want to leave it as it is and type in a word or a few words that will probably be in the title. But if you're looking for a specific post your results will probably be a lot more satisfactory if you change it to "Show Posts."

However, as I've already said, this is a very generalized way to use the search function, and there are chances you may have a hard time finding something really specific.

For More Specific Results

If you can't find something or need something very specific, you will have to do a little more work. One of the best ways to find what you're looking for is to use the Advanced Search, which will be explained in the next post in this thread:



Yet another way, if you're in a certain forum and know it's the right one to look in, is to click on the Search this Forum option, which will of course limit your results to only that particular forum:



For even more specificness, if you are looking for a certain post or something said in the middle of a topic and you know which one it is in, you would use the Search this Thread option:



Reasons Why Your Search May Not Be Working

- One of the most common reasons I've come across is word size. When you search for something, the engine DOES NOT recognize any words shorter than 4 letters. So words like the, and, is, it, at, for, etc...they are all out, and if you use any of them along with another, longer word, you still won't find what you're looking for.

- Check your spelling. This should be obvious, but I'll say it anyway. Spelling has to be precise with the search engine. But just the same, in looking for a post someone made and still nothing comes up, chances are they had mispelled it originally. Sometimes I will purposely mispell a word when searching just in case what I'm looking for has been mispelled itself.

- The results are way too generic. If your search brings back 4 pages of results and you still can't find exactly what you're looking for, then you probably need to narrow it down. Or use the Advanced Search to make it more specific.



Of course there are probably many other ways and tricks to find things, and any other suggestions are welcome in this thread.

Shivercide

I made this its own post since it is very detailed in itself.


Advanced Search can be very tricky. But once you learn just how to use it, it will become a very useful tool in which you can use to find pretty much anything.

1. First, take a look at the Keyword box in the upper left corner:



Aside from just typing in the word(s) you're looking for, you also want to decide if you're looking for something that is said inside of a post, or in the title itself. If you leave the dropdown box on Search Entire Posts, then it will do just what it says - look for your keyword(s) inside the posts. But if you're looking for thread titles, then you will want to change this to Search Titles Only.

2. Now look at the Search Options box just underneath the last one:



This is where you'll further crack the search engine and get closer to finding exactly what you want!

There are quite a few combinations you can use here, and it depends on if you know exactly what you want to find, or if it's very vague. If you're looking for something that you KNOW exists and just wish to find it again, you can play around with the settings.

• For instance, if you know a thread you're looking for had tons of posts in it, you may want to type a number in the first box to correspond with this:
  
  
  
  Of course, if you know it has very few responses you can change the dropdown box to "At Most" and type in a smaller number.

• Then there is this tricky box, which has even more combinations in itself:
  
  
  
  It's best to leave it at this if, of course, you're searching for a post or thread that is older than a year. The search engine will then not search for anything newer.
  
  So if you need to find something newer, then you would simply change the second box to "and Newer". If you're looking for something REALLY new and only want the most specific results, then change the first box to something like, say, "A Month Ago" or something even less than that depending, and the second box to "And Newer". Of course there are even more combinations you can do.
  

• With this option...
  
  
  
  ...you simply choose whether you want your search results displayed as posts or the thread titles. If you're only looking for certain topics, then it's best to change it to Threads.

3. The next box is to simply decide which forums to search in. If you're not sure which forum it might turn up in, just leave it on "Search All Open Forums":



If you are pretty sure though, all you have to do is change it to the forum you want to search in. You can choose more than one at a time by clicking on (highlighting) one forum, and then while holding down the CTRL button on your keyboard, click another.

The "Also search in child forums" option only means that it will also look in subforums. For instance, if you want to search in the Completely Off-Topic forum and have that box checked, it will also search in EvBored, Movies and Television, etc.

4. Finally the Search by User Name box:



This is of course only useful if you know for certain who posted a certain thing (otherwise just leave it blank). You can type in the person's user name, and couple it with keywords and it will search for only their posts with those specific keywords in it!

This particular box is also good for finding really old posts that belong to a specific user. If you go through their profile and try to search for their posts that way, it basically only brings up 4 pages of the most recent posts.

To go back even farther, you would use this box in the Advanced Search. Type in the username, leave the keyword box blank, and then play with the Search Options box. You can find posts of anyone's up to A Year Ago and Older. Changing the Older to Newer will bring even more results you would have not been able to find before.

5. When you're ready with everything, just click Search Now and wait for your results to be displayed.

Princess Mary

So now I know what the 'four letters' mean. Obviously why I couldn't find The Gathering when I searched it this morning, I used the world 'the'.
Hopefully it'll be easier to search knowing this.

And Steph, no double posting. You know the rules...

Shivercide

Well this is a case that double-posting is actually useful. See what I do for you people? And plus I'm a power-hungry mod that can do whatever the hell she wants. XD