Using EvBoard's Search

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:

PICTURE



PICTURE

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:

PICTURE

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:

PICTURE

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:

PICTURE

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.