Basic Search
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Click the magnifying glass at the top right of the window.
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Enter one or two key words that you want to find.
- Try to use short phrases to prevent over filtering that may result in few or no results.
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Review the short list of initial results and chose one if appropriate.
- Note that you see results in Topics, Users, and Tags in the results.
- You can also edit your initial search term(s) to improve results.
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If needed, click the “show more” option.
- This opens a full “Advanced Search” window.
- It can be sorted and filtered to further refine your search results.
- You can also edit your initial search term(s) to improve results.
Advanced Search
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Sort By:
- Relevance is the default, and works pretty well.
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Latest Post is useful if you know the results are more likely recent (at the top of the results list) or you can scroll, while looking at the general time frame between each result
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Categories:
- Click the drop down list, and select one of the categories to narrow the search result. Consider the most likely category, but sometimes you may guess wrong. So be willing to try more than one if needed.
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Tagged:
- Only do this after selecting a Category above.
- Click in the box, and select one of the available tags. These are the most common ones.
- If the desired Tag is not visible, start typing the tag you think exists, and you will see a filtered list with your text string. Pick the desired Tag from that list.
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Posted by:
- If you know the specific person who posted the item you want, click in the box and start typing the name. You will see a filtered list with your text string. Pick the desired Person form that list.
There are more options within the Advanced search. Use them as appropriate, but I get most of my results by using the ones covered above.