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The Search Function


88pathoffroad
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Try searching using quotes, asterisks for wildcard searching, and +/- signs for including or disincluding terms. It's a dynamic search engine, not a text-only engine.

 

"clear corners" as a search term will get you matches for ONLY the words inside the quotation marks, in the order they are written. That's a very precise search, only to be used if you know exactly what you're searching for but don't know where it went.

 

clear corner* will also get you a lot.

 

clear +corner is another good idea.

 

clear +corner* -hardbody -hb -truck will give you info on the first two words, MINUS any entries that also have the words "hardbody", "HB", and "truck" in them.

 

This stuff is all available any time if you click the "Advanced Usage Help" link on the Search page...

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Agreed, the search function is a bit funky and finiky, BUT if you use the advanced search mode and READ the help then play with it a bit, you'll find that you will enjoy success more often than not. There are plenty of tricks to learn. For example, you want to find a thread that Pezzy started but you cant remember the name but you know it was about 2 months ago...

Leave the key phrase empty, enter Pezzy for the members name, and set the search parameters to <90 days, search title only and search entire forum and you will get every Pezzy thread in the forum for the last 90 days... Thats just 1 example... ;)

 

B

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A wildcard search is a search in which the term or words you're searching for contains an asterisk placed before or after the words. The asterisk is a blank "wildcard" symbol that tells the search engine to return any matches with any character in the place of the asterisk.

 

pathfinder* will return any entries containing the word "pathfinder" plus another character, like "pathfinders", "pathfindering", "pathfindero", etc. As you can see, one asterisk will serve for multiple additional characters. Got it?

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yeah, the search works fine but you pretty much have to use the advanced options. be careful and set everything right and you usually end up with what you're looking for. but the search dealy definitely needs to be more like google: you type in kinda sorta what you're lookin for and it returns precisely what you were looking for =)

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  • 4 months later...

To add to this post a little bit....

 

When making a post, please use as descriptive a title as possible pertaining to your question.

 

Here's an example: You just bought your Pathfinder and have a couple of questions about maintenance.

 

A title such as "New Owner With Questions..." may get attention in the forum, but it won't come up under a search for "maintenance procedure."

 

Using a title such as: "Maintenance Procedure and Interval Questions" will not only give people an idea of what the post is about and whether they need to read it or not, it will also show up much earlier in the search and help people with similar questions in the future.

 

This is one great shortcoming of message board search functions. When a thread is not properly titled, the search function will skip over it, or put it way at the end of the results. Most of the time, the search function sorts by relevance, and if the title isn't related the content, search will skip over it as irrelevant.

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  • 3 months later...

Sounds abit like our computer system at work. When we look up a customer you type %smith and it will bring up everything with the name smith in it. I do like the saying that "Knowlage is worthless if not shared". :secret: :type:

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  • 2 weeks later...
To add to this post a little bit....

 

When making a post, please use as descriptive a title as possible pertaining to your question.

 

Here's an example: You just bought your Pathfinder and have a couple of questions about maintenance.

 

A title such as "New Owner With Questions..." may get attention in the forum, but it won't come up under a search for "maintenance procedure."

 

Using a title such as: "Maintenance Procedure and Interval Questions" will not only give people an idea of what the post is about and whether they need to read it or not, it will also show up much earlier in the search and help people with similar questions in the future.

 

This is one great shortcoming of message board search functions. When a thread is not properly titled, the search function will skip over it, or put it way at the end of the results. Most of the time, the search function sorts by relevance, and if the title isn't related the content, search will skip over it as irrelevant.

from personal experience with the search function i find that it doesn't search through thread titles at all.. just my 2c.

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  • 3 months later...
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  • 2 years later...

Thought I would read through this and see what has been said. I think this is mostly old information from the old style board. As far as searching goes now, use the Advanced Search. Check the box that says "Search titles only". For me, this has been the best way of finding something, or a certian thread. Try it with the word "lift". See all the threads?

Now this might not work for everything, but may get you more results initially(before pulling all of your hair out).

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