- To view all topics in alphabetical, originating date or date modified order, click on one of the links at the top of the panel on the left (topics will be displayed ten at a time).
- If some or all of the topics are in a hierachy (ie. with parent-child relationships), then you also have options to display "top level topics" only (ie. topics that have no parents). The options (if available) are displayed as links in the panel on the left.
- NOTE that the alphabetical and top level options will not be available if the numbers of topics in the database is 100 or more.
- If some or all of the topics are in named Groups, then a list of the Topic Groups is displayed in the panel on the left. Click on any of them to display a list of the topics that are members of that Group.
- You can search for topics that contain specific words (up to five) by typing them into the search box, each one separated by a space, and then clicking on the SUBMIT button. The list of topics returned will be those that contain ALL of the search words. The search is not case-sensitive.
- To search for a specific phrase, place all the words in double quotation marks (eg. "test system" ). If one of your search criteria is a specific phrase (ie enclosed in inverted commas, eg. "test system") then all other search criteria must also be enclosed in their own inverted commas, whether single words or multiple.
- If you start a word with curly brackets (eg {lighting ), then the search looks only for cases where that word is designated as a keyword in the main text of the topic OR is the first word of the name of a Group.
- Thus you can use the search facility to find Topics which all belong to the same subset of Topic Groups. For instance, {03 {05 would find those Topics which are members of both groups 03 and 05.
|
|
- If you place a minus sign (-) in front of any individual search word, the search results will exclude any topics that contain any of the search words that are prefaced by a minus sign. For instance, test -validate would find those Topics which contain the word "test" but not the word "validate".
- If you place a vertical bar (|) in front of any individual search word, the search results will include any topics that contain either the word before the bar OR the word after the bar (instead of listing topics that contain both words). For instance, test |validate would find those Topics which contain the word "test" or the word "validate". You cannot have an OR search which also contains a "NOT" requirement (such as test |-validate), and it is not advisable to mix "AND" and "OR" criteria in the same search as the results may be unpredicatable.
- You can also use English in place of "-" and "|", as follows: use AND between words/phrases where both/all words/phrases are to be searched for; use OR instead of | ; and use AND NOT (or simply NOT) instead of - . All these operators (AND, OR, NOT) must be in capital letters, not lower case. Do not use OR NOT.
- You can create complex search conditions by clicking on the + sign to the left of the Topic Groups (which will add up to 3 Topic Groups to the "Search" box, then click on SUBMIT to perform a search for Topics that are members of all those groups.
- You can search for word patterns by using the % character to separate each word. Thus foot%ball will find not only Topics containing "football", but also Topics containing the word "foot" followed later in the text by "ball". You can use this to find text in specific datafields. For instance, ==5%ball%==6 will find all Topics where "ball" appears in the 5th datafield.
- By default the search will only be performed using the current Data Source (as displayed at the top of the page) You can switch data sources using the Data Source buttons to the left. To search across all Data Sources, precede your search word/phrase by an asterisk.
|