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How does the Advanced search
work and how can it help me?
The Advanced search form enables you to perform a
wider range of searches than is possible with the Simple text
search, or to refine your search further, for example to find
only images. You can also combine searches
together using the form, for example you can search for prayers
suitable for children that contain the word 'forgive'. Combining
searches in this way can help produce more accurate results.
For your convenience, detailed instructions on using Advanced
search are available elsewhere in this FAQ for the following
typical advanced searches:
For information about other search possibilities within Advanced
search, read on.
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The Advanced search form
in detail
The Advanced search form is presented as a table with
three columns. Each row contains a different type of search.
The first column lists the Field - the type of search
that you can perform using this row of the table. The second
column is headed Search, and contains the input box
into which you type or select what you are looking for. Most
of the boxes can by typed into (words or numbers depending
on the field in question), but some offer drop-down menus
instead, from which you need to 'Select a value'. The final,
third column offers Help - brief instructions explaining
how and why you might want to fill in this search field. When
you've filled in your search criteria, just go to the bottom
of the table, and select OK.
The Help column in the table should offer
sufficient explanation of the fields for you to be able to
see what to use. In general, the most useful fields to search
in are:
- description and content (which are also
available in the Simple text
search), which allow you to search for words that feature
in the item or its description;
- resource type, which allows you to specify that
the search results will only include items that are listed
as 'Pray' (useful if you're looking for prayers) or 'Think
it through' (if you're looking for reflective or discursive
ideas), and so on;
- suitable for, which allows you to specify the
audience with whom you wish to use the resource, for example,
children;
- format, which allows you to specify whether you
want to see text resources, PDFs, or jpg
or gif images - useful if you want to find out if
there are any pictures available to match your theme, and
you don't want to be bothered by the text results, or if
you want to ensure that you only find text as you are unable
to use other types of resource in your church.
Perhaps the most powerful aspect of
the Advanced search is its ability to combine searches.
Just fill in values on more than one row - perhaps just two,
like format and content, perhaps more - before
scrolling to the bottom of the table and hitting OK
to start the search. Obviously some combinations will find
no results - for example, there may not yet be any images
available to match a specific Bible passage. It's best to
keep combined searches to a few simple combinations
from the list of most useful fields - description and/or
content (but not both together) combined with one or
more of resource type, suitable for, and format. This
will normally be enough to get you the results you need. |
