RTAW Reefpedia:Searching
From RTAW Reefpedia
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RTAW Reefpedia Search
Put your keyword in the searchbox.
- Go - (or Enter on keyboard) will take you automatically to the article.
- Search - will return a list of articles.
Effective Searching
Here are some really helpful tips and hints for using the RTAW Reefpedia search feature effectively:
Avoid Short and Common Words
If your search terms include a common "stop word" (such as "the", "your", "more", "right", "while", "when", "who", "which", "such", "every", "about") it may give a large number of non-relevant results.
Wildcards
You can use limited wildcards if you really want to. See Boolean fulltext search for details on their use. However, wildcard searches are slower, so go easy on the poor server.
Words with Special Characters
In a search for a word with a diaeresis, such as Sint Odiliënberg, it depends whether this ë is stored as one character or as "ë". In the first case one can simply search for Odilienberg (or Odiliënberg); in the second case it can only be found by searching for Odili, euml and/or nberg. This is actually a bug that should be fixed -- the entities should be folded into their raw character equivalents so all searches on them are equivalent..
Words in Single Quotes
If a word appears in an article with single quotes, you can only find it if you search for the word with quotes. Since this is rarely desirable, it is better to use double quotes in articles for which this problem does not arise.
An apostrophe is identical to a single quote, therefore the name Mu'ammar can be found only by searching for exactly that (and not otherwise). A word with 's is an exception in that it can be found also by searching for the word without the apostrophe and the s.
Namespaces Searched by Default
The search only applies to the namespaces selected in the user's preferences. To search the other namespaces check or uncheck the tickboxes in "Search in namespaces" box found at the bottom of a search results page. Depending on the browser, a box may still be checked from a previous search, but without being effective any longer! To make sure, uncheck and recheck it.
Searching the image namespace means searching the image descriptions, i.e. the first parts of the image description pages.
The Source Text is Searched
The source text (what one sees in the edit box, also called wiki text) is searched. This distinction is relevant for piped links, for interlanguage links (to find links to Chinese articles, search for zh, not for Zhongwen), special characters (if ê is coded as ê it is found searching for ecirc), etc.
Delay in Updating the Search Index
For reasons of efficiency and priority, very recent changes are not always immediately taken into account in searches.
External Search Engines
Various search engines can provide domain-specific searches, which lets you search RTAW Reefpedia specifically. Searches are based on the text as shown by the browser, so wiki markup is irrelevant. Depending on your browser, you may also be able to use tools that allow you to search RTAW Reefpedia using bookmarklets.
In general, external search engines are faster than a RTAW Reefpedia search. However, because the search engine's cache is based on when the site was indexed, the search may not return newly created pages. Similarly, the search engine's cached version of the page will not be as up-to-date as the link to RTAW Reefpedia itself.
By following the link below, you can use the Google search engine to search RTAW Reefpedia. Google indexes all namespaces.
If you frequently search via Google, consider installing the Google Toolbar. Using the "search this site" button allows you to quickly search. The official Google Toolbar is for Internet Explorer (Microsoft Windows and Mac) and for Mozilla Firefox (works on all operating system platforms for which Firefox is available, such as Windows, Linux and Mac OS X).
Yahoo!
By following the link below, you can use the Yahoo! search engine to search RTAW Reefpedia.
If you frequently search via Yahoo!, consider installing the Yahoo! Companion Toolbar. Using the "Search Only the Current Site" button allows you to quickly search. The official Yahoo! Companion Toolbar is only for Windows with Internet Explorer and Mozilla.
