Searching in the Forum

Finding a Specific Thread or Post

Every forum has a unique live search system built in that will allow you to search for topics or posts quickly, and will allow you to see results as you type. You can locate the search bars in the top-right hand corner of a topics listing in a board on the forum, or in the top-right hand corner when viewing a topic.

To search for a specific topic, click into a board that you think may have the topic that you are looking for. Once you're on the topics page in a board, find the search bar located just above the Last Post column on the topics page. Click the search bar to activate it and then begin to type. You can type in either something that you think may have been in the title of the topic you are looking for, or you can search for key words that were used in posts of the topic that you are looking for. The search results will update automatically after each keystroke you make to show you the topics that contain the keywords you are looking for.

The same can be done within a topic itself as well. If you are wanting to look for a specific post in a topic, but don't want to go through all of the different pages to look for it, you can use the search bar found in the top-right hand corner of a topic, just below the Reply button if available. Simply begin to type the words you're searching for that the post contained and the topic will update automatically to show the posts that contained the keywords.

If you need to further fine tune your search, click the magnifying glass icon found to the right of the search bar for more filtering options. Otherwise if you conduct some searches and are not finding what you are looking for, it's possible that what you're searching for is in a different board or topic on the forum. You can use the Search button found in the menu bar at the top of the page to conduct a forum wide search and you may be able to find what you're looking for using the global search tools there.

Searching For Content Made By Specific Members

Sometimes when you're looking for specific content, you may remember some things about who may have made the content that you are looking for. This could range by a specific member, a member group that the member was in, or who specifically created the topic that the post you are looking for was made in. If you can recall details about the member that created the content that you are looking for, you can use the "Who to search..." filters on the forum search page to help find what you are looking for.

To get started, click the Search button located in the forums top menu bar. On the search page, you'll find the "Who to search..." filters located in the bottom-right hand corner of the page. In this category you'll find the following search options:

"by at least one of the members" - This allows you to look for content that was made by one or more members. This would be best used if you have an idea on who created the content you're searching for, but are split on a couple of possible members that created it. To add a member to the search filter, click on the search box provided and a pop-up will appear. In the pop-up, search for one or more members using the member search provided and then click the Done button when you've selected the members you want to search from. You should see the usernames of the selected members listed in the text box provided.

"posts made by" - This filter allow you to search by the type of member that may have created the content you are looking for. To the right of this, you'll see a drop-down menu with a list of possible options:

Everybody: This option will not restrict your results by the type of visitor that created the content.
Staff: This filter will give you results that were only created by a staff member of the forum.
Members: With this selected, the results you receive back will only be from members of the forum, and will exclude content posted by guests.
Guests: This filter will only return results of content that was created by forum guests, and will exclude content posted by registered members.

"except posts by the members" - This filter is the opposite of the "by at least one" option mentioned earlier. If you know the content you are searching for was not made by a specific member, you can use this filter to prevent any results from the member that you know didn't create the content that you are looking for. To use this filter, click on the text box provided next to this option and a pop-up will appear. In the pop-up, you can use the member search to find one or more members that you want to use in this filter. Once you have selected the accounts that you want to use in the filter, click the Done button found in the lower-right hand corner of the pop-up and you should see the usernames of the members you selected appear in the text box provided.

"by the member group" - If you can remember the member group of the member that created the content you are searching for, but cannot recall who specifically posted the content, you can use this option to filter your search results based on the member group of the member that created the content. To use this filter, click the box provided next to this option and a pop-up box will appear. This pop-up will list all of the member groups on the forum. Check the box next to the member group that you can recall the member that created the content you are looking for was in and then click the Done button in the pop-up. Once that's done, you'll see the member groups listed in the text box.

"In threads created by" - This filter can be used if you can recall who originally created the topic that houses the content that you are looking for, but can't remember the specific topic it is in. Click the box provided next to this option and a pop-up box will appear with a user search box. Use this user search to find the member that created the topic that houses the content that you are searching for. Once you have selected an account, click the Done button found in the pop-up window and you should see the username of the member you selected in the box provided.

The options provided in the "Who to search..." category of the search page can be used with any of the other search options on the search page as well. This is just one way that you can use to further refine search results if you are having trouble finding the specific content that you are looking for.