Guide - Searching The Forum

[Emz]

You have a choice to either watch our video talking you through everything you need to know about searching our forum or scroll down to read with helpful images showing what we are talking about. Both have the same information.

{ INSERT VIDEO HERE }



Searching The Forum - Quick Links
1) Searching The Forum From Home/Index Page
2) Searching Within An Area/Topic
3) Searching For A Member

[Emz]

Searching The Forum From Home/Index Page



(Need a closer look? Clicking the image will open it up, right-click and select 'Open Link in New Tab' to not leave this page.)

On the home/index page, there are two different ways to search the Nightingales Forum. You can either type what you are looking for in the text box with 'Search...' and click the magnifying glass or click the symbol that looks like a gear (circled in the image above) to enter the advanced search.

While the advanced search may look a little intimidating, the page talks you through how to use it and will give you better results. Also, as with most things, it is easy to use when you know how. This guide will also help you through doing an advanced search.



1) Search Query
The top text box is the area you type in what you are searching for. You'll notice at the side underneath 'Search for keywords' it gives you some tips on how to better your search.

More Info on Tips
+ When placed before a keyword, that keyword must be found in the result text.
- When placed before a keyword, that keyword must not be present in the result text.

Example:
+dog -cat
Returns results which contain the word "dog", but not "cat".


| This token can be used to separate a list of keywords, of which at least one of the keywords should be found in the text. Words may be placed inside of parentheses and combined with a + or - to indicate that at least one of the words must or must not appear in each result.

Examples:
dog|cat
Returns results which contain either the word "dog" or the word "cat".

-(dog|cat)
Returns results which contain neither the word "dog" nor the word "cat".


* An asterisk in a keyword allows for partial keyword matches.

Example:

cat*
Returns results which begin with the word "cat", such as "cats" and "catastrophe".



You then have the option (underneath the text box) to either 'Search for all terms or use query as entered' or 'Search for any terms'. There is no right or wrong answer for this selection, do what you think will work best.

'Search for author' is useful if you know/remember who posted what you are looking for, you can type in their username here. If you do not, you can use * as a wildcard for partial matches, as stated on the page itself or even leave it blank.


2) Search Options : Forums/Messages
You may know or even have an idea of where the post/topic you are searching for is located, if so you can select that forum/board from the list in 'Search in forums'. If you wish to select/click more than one forum/board, hold down the 'Ctrl' button on your keyboard when selecting your second/third etc option. (Unsure how you would do this on a touchscreen device). To unselect a forum/board, just hold down that 'Ctrl' button and reclick on said forum/board.

You have the option to include any subforums/subboards in any forums/boards you have selected.

The other option is whether to search topic titles, messages etc. The choice is up to you and what you think would work best for your search.

3) Search Options : Results
Lastly, the only other thing to decide on when doing your advanced search is how you wish for the results to be displayed/sorted.

• 'Display results as:' can be either in topics or posts.
• 'Sort results by:' clicking the drop-down menu arrow will let you see you can choose either: Author, Post Time, Forum, Topic Title or Post Subject. The results can be displayed in ascending or descending order.
• 'Limit results to previous:' you can leave this as 'all results' or go from '1 day' up to '1 year'.
• 'Return first:' this formats the results to only contain a specific number of characters of the matching posts. Which is helpful when the post in question is long.

[Emz]

Searching Within An Area/Topic



(Need a closer look? Clicking the image will open it up, right-click and select 'Open Link in New Tab' to not leave this page.)

You may have noticed that while using the Nightingales forum you will see other search bars besides the one in the navigation bar up top. These can be used the same way and clicking the gear icon will take you to the advanced search area explained in the post above.



1) Board or Sub-Board Area Search
This works the same way as detailed in the above post, the only difference will be instead of doing a wide forum search it will only search within that board/sub-board/area that you are currently in. Clicking the gear for the advanced option will take you to the same page as seen in the image in the above post. The only difference being that the board/sub-board you are currently in will be highlighted already in the 'Search Options' area.


2) Topic Search
This works the same way as detailed in the above post, the only difference will be instead of doing a wide forum search it will only search within that topic you are currently viewing. Clicking the gear for the advanced option will take you to the same page as seen in the image in the above post.

[Emz]

Searching For A Member



(Need a closer look? Clicking the image will open it up, right-click and select 'Open Link in New Tab' to not leave this page.)
To search for one or more members on the Nightingales Forum, first click on 'Members' in the navigation bar at the top of the forum. This will open up the member list, you can always look through this and click the letter or other to find it easier to track down members. But this only works if you remember their username, if you don't or can not find them you can click 'Find a member' to open up the search a member box.

There are a few ways to search for an member, by their username or part of their username. Their email address, if you happen to know it, by date of last active/when they joined the forum. By how many posts they have, their IP/domain or by which group they are a part of.

Just like which other searches, you can sort the results by different means.