Searching

The Discussion Board has a search system that will allow you to find topics you are interested in.  To get to the search page, click the small Search link at the top of any page.

Search Types

Search for Keywords 

You may search for words in the content of topics.  Enter the words to search for into the text field. 

• If you select Search for any terms or use query as entered, then the search system will display topics containing ANY of the words you entered. 
• You may use the AND, OR, and NOT to indicate which words you want to search for. 
• Searching for - Laurel AND Hardy - will find only those topics that contain both words.
• Searching for - Laurel OR Hardy - will find the topics that contain either word.
• Searching for - Laurel NOT Hardy - will find those topics that contain the word Laurel but do not contain the word Hardy 
   
• If you select Search for all terms, only topics containing ALL of the words in the query will be displayed. 

You may use the asterisk(*) wildcard character to broaden your search.  The asterisk will match any number of characters. 

Unlike the main BEEP search, the discussion board search will not accept whole phrases (usually surrounded with "quotation marks"). 

The minimum size for words is four characters, and the maximum size is twenty characters. 

Search for Author

You may search for posts by post author.  Simply enter the author's username into this text field.  You may use the asterisk(*) wildcard in author's names to broaden your search. 

Search Options

• Forum - Select the forum you wish to search in, or All available. To search multiple forums, search by Category.
• Category - Select the category you wish to search in, or All available.
• Display Results as Posts - The Search results will be displayed as a list of the posts.  Part of the post that matches the query will be displayed, and the search terms highlighted.  For each post there will be a link.
• Display Results as Topics - The Search results will be displayed as a list of Topic titles.  For each topic there will be a link to the forum it is in, the topic itself, and the author of the topic.
• Search Previous - This dropdown box will allow you to specify the maximum age of posts to display as results of the search.  There are also option buttons here that will allow you to search only the body of posts, or the subject (title) of the posts as well.
• Sort by - This will allow you to specify how search results are organized.  You may sort by Post Time, Post Subject, Topic Title, Author, or Forum.  The sort may be in ascending or descending order alphabetically (or chronologically where appropriate)
• Return first - When Display Results as is set to Posts, this dropdown box will allow you to control how much of the post is displayed in the search result.

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