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| <title>Searching help</title> |
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| <body> |
| <h2>Searching help</h2> |
| <p>The help system includes a search engine that can run simple or complex queries on the documentation to help you |
| find the information you are looking for.</p> |
| <p>To search help:</p> |
| <ol> |
| <li>From the main menu, select <strong>Help > Search</strong></li> |
| <li>Type in the word or phrase for which you want to search</li> |
| <li>Click <strong>GO</strong> or press Enter. The list of results will be displayed below</li> |
| <li>To view the content of a topic in the list of results, click on it</li> |
| </ol> |
| <p>Alternatively, you can search from the Help window using the <em>Search</em> field at the top of the window.</p> |
| <h3>Refining the search results in the help view</h3> |
| <p>If the search yields too many results, the information you are looking for may not appear in the top 10 or 15 |
| results. You can then refine the search to reduce the number of results.</p> |
| <p>To refine a search:</p> |
| <ol> |
| <li>Click the <strong>Search Scope</strong> link. to expand search scope section</li> |
| <li>Click on the <strong>Advanced Settings</strong> link. The Search Scope preference dialog will open</li> |
| <li>Select <strong>Local Help</strong> from the list</li> |
| <li>Select the <strong>Search only the following topics</strong> button to narrow down the search scope</li> |
| <li>In the working set content tree, select the topics to which you want to narrow the search</li> |
| <li>Click <strong>OK</strong> to activate the changes and return to search page in the Help view</li> |
| <li>Click <strong>GO</strong> again. The new list of results will appear</li> |
| </ol> |
| <p>Changing the appearance of the results</p> |
| <p>Two buttons on the toolbar can be used to change the way results are displayed. The <img border="0" src= |
| "../images/e_show_categories.svg" alt="Show result categories"> <b>Show result categories</b> button, when pressed, |
| will cause the results to be grouped by book. The <img border="0" src="../images/e_show_descriptions.svg" alt= |
| "Show result descriptions"> <b>Show result descriptions</b> button, when pressed, causes descriptions to show.</p> |
| <h3>Highlighting Search Terms</h3> |
| <p>By default, when a search result is selected, the search terms that were used to find the document will be |
| highlighted. By using the <img src="../images/highlight.svg" alt="Highlight Search Terms" border="0"> <b>Highlight |
| Search Terms</b> toolbar button, you can toggle this feature on and off. This button is available in both the help |
| window and the help view and each will remember the state of the button for displaying subsequent search results.</p> |
| <h3>Query syntax</h3> |
| <p>Follow the following search expression rules for searching local help content:</p> |
| <ul> |
| <li>Unless otherwise stated, there is an implied AND between all search terms. In other words, topics that contain |
| all the search terms will be returned. For example: |
| <pre>Java project</pre> |
| <p>returns topics that contain the word <i>Java</i> and the word <i>project</i>, but does not return topics that |
| contain only one of these words.</p> |
| </li> |
| <li>Use OR before optional terms . For example: |
| <pre>applet OR application</pre> |
| <p>returns topics that contain the word <i>applet</i> or the word <i>application</i> (or both).</p> |
| </li> |
| <li>Use NOT before terms you want to exclude from search results. For example: |
| <pre>servlet NOT ejb</pre> |
| <p>returns topics that contain the word <i>servlet</i> and do not contain the word <i>ejb</i>. <b>Note:</b> NOT |
| only works as a binary operator (that is, "NOT servlet" is not a valid expression).</p> |
| </li> |
| <li>Use ? for a single-character wildcard and * for a multi-character wildcard. For example: |
| <pre>par?</pre> |
| <p>returns topics that contain <i>part</i> or <i>park</i>, but not <i>participate</i>. On the other hand:</p> |
| <pre>par*</pre> |
| <p>returns topics that contain <i>part</i>, <i>park</i>, <i>participate</i>, <i>pardon</i>, and so on. |
| <b>Note:</b> The search engine does not accept terms with a wild card at first character position.</p> |
| </li> |
| <li>Use double quotation marks around terms you want treated as a phrase. For example: |
| <pre>"creating projects"</pre> |
| <p>returns topics that contain the entire phrase <i>creating projects</i>. Topics where the words <i>creating</i> |
| and <i>projects</i> are not consecutive are not returned.</p> |
| </li> |
| <li>Punctuation acts as term delimiters. For example: |
| <pre>plugin.xml</pre> |
| <p>returns hits on topics that contain <i>plugin</i> and <i>xml</i>, which is likely broader than you want. If |
| you want to find just those topics containing <i>plugin.xml</i>, use double quotes, as in:</p> |
| <pre>"plugin.xml"</pre> |
| </li> |
| <li>The search engine ignores character case. For example: |
| <pre>Workbench</pre> |
| <p>returns topics that contain 'workbench', 'Workbench', 'WorkBench', and 'WORKBENCH'.</p> |
| </li> |
| <li>The following stop words are common English words which will be ignored (not searched for) if they appear in |
| the search expression: a, and, are, as, at, be, but, by, in, into, is, it, no, not, of, on, or, s, such, t, that, |
| the, their, then, there, these, they, to, was, will, with.</li> |
| <li>The search engine does "fuzzy" searches and word stemming. If you enter <i>create</i>, it will return hits on |
| topics that contain <i>creates</i>, <i>creating</i>, <i>creator</i>, and so on. To prevent search engine from |
| stemming terms, enclose them in double quotes.</li> |
| </ul> |
| <h3>Extending the search scope</h3> |
| <p>If you cannot locate information in the local help, you can extend search scope to remote info-center or search |
| engines.</p> |
| <p>To enable search engines:</p> |
| <ol> |
| <li>Click the <b>Search Scope</b> link. to expand search scope section. The list of search engine is |
| displayed.</li> |
| <li>Select the ones that contain information you are looking for.</li> |
| </ol> |
| <p>In addition to search engines provided, you may define additional search engines.</p> |
| <p>To define a new search engine:</p> |
| <ol> |
| <li>Click the <b>Search Scope</b> link. to expand search scope section.</li> |
| <li>Click the <b>Advanced Settings</b> link. Search Scope preference dialog opens.</li> |
| <li>Click <b>New</b>.</li> |
| <li>Select the search engine type.</li> |
| <li>Click <strong>OK</strong>.</li> |
| <li>Provide a name and a description</li> |
| <li>Select engine specific settings and scope below. For the remote search engines, accessed using URL, fill in a |
| full URL to query the engine. Use <code>{expression}</code> in the place of search expression.</li> |
| </ol> |
| <h3>Defining multiple search scopes</h3> |
| <p>By default, changing search scope modifies the search scope named "default". You can define multiple search scope. |
| They will be saved, allowing to quickly change search scope to one of them.</p> |
| <p>To define a new search scope:</p> |
| <ol> |
| <li>Click the current search scope name, beside the <b>Search Scope</b> link. .Search Scope Sets dialog |
| appears.</li> |
| <li>Click <strong>New</strong>.</li> |
| <li>Type a name, and confirm.</li> |
| <li>Select the newly created search scope.</li> |
| <li>Click <strong>OK</strong>. The new search scope becomes current.</li> |
| </ol> |
| <p>Changes to the search scope affect current search scope.</p> |
| <h3>Search index generation</h3> |
| <p>The first time you search the online help, the help system might initiate an index-generation process. This |
| process builds the indexes for the search engine to use. It may take several minutes, depending on the amount of |
| documentation and whether prebuilt indexes are installed. Results of the search will be available upon completion of |
| the indexing process.</p> |
| <p>Each time you add or modify the documentation set (for example, when you install a new feature or update an |
| existing one), the index will be updated to reflect the new information set.</p> |
| <h3 class="related">Related concepts</h3><a href="../concepts/help.htm">Help</a><br> |
| <a href="../concepts/help_view.htm">Help view</a> |
| <h3 class="related">Related tasks</h3><a href="help_navigate.htm">Navigating help topics</a> |
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