Using the phpBB search engine:
The phpBB search engine is integrated with the forums and can always be accessed from any forum page by clicking "search" at the top of the page. There are the folling options in the "Search Query Box:"
Search for keywords
In this box you may enter your search query and any of the folling BOOLEAN keywords: NOT AND OR * . Regardless of you search query, you should include at least some boolean keywords in your search terms. In order to use the boolean terms you must place them before the word that they will affect. NOT will exclude the word from the search results. AND will make sure that the word is included in the search terms. OR is slightly diferent. Here is an example:
shadows OR pencils
The search results will include topics/posts with only shadows, only pencils, and both shadows and pencils. I have included an example below which uses all the boolean terms out-lined above:
shadow AND rendering OR technique NOT directx
The above search result should include posts/topics about shadow rendering, shadow technique, shadow rendering technique but not anything relating to directx.
The wildcard character * is extremely useful. It should be pretty self-explanatory, but here is an example anyway:
rend*
This would bring up render, renderer, renderers. You can also place wildcards in the middle of a search term like this:
p*o*s
The wildcard could represent any ammount of characters, and the result could include the following: programmers, pointers, peoples.
By experimenting with the boolean logic you can expect a fair ammount of improvement in search results. If you find the boolean terms limited, then try using the Google site-specific search as outlined near the bottom of this how-to.
Seach for author
This is self explanitory. The only limitation is that you can't include boolean logic like NOT OR AND . You can use the wildard character * however!
THE "Search Options Box"
Forum:
Just choose the specific forum to search in. I generally just select the default "All availble" since it there are some mis-placed posts in the forums.
Category:
In the Irrlicht forums there is only one option- Irrlicht Engine
Display results as:
Really easy. Remember that Topics are the general topic of the thread; the posts are added by all the other users. I would never pick "Posts" since this would create to many search results. "Topics" is the default anyway.
All the other options are self-explanatory: Search previous, Sort by, Return first. Just accept the default options for these; you should never really need to change them.
Using the Google site-specific search engine:
Google site-specific searching is extremely useful for advanced searching. It is very simple to use, but the downside is that it has to be used outside the Irrlicht forums. To use the google search engine, point your web-browser at http://www.google.com In the search box type site:irrlicht.sourceforge.net/phpBB2/ You can then type your search query after this. Google allows the boolean logic alrady outlined above: AND NOT OR * as well as many others including XOR + ~ ...
I am only going to explain XOR as it is the most useful. If you would like to learn how to use the others, go to http://www.google.com/help/refinesearch.html
Using XOR
XOR is similar to OR but doesn't include both terms. For an example:
shadowing XOR stenciling
would produce the following results: shadowing, stenciling. It would not include topics that deal with shadowing and stenciling. This can be rather useful at times, but should not be over-used, since it rather limits your results.
I hope this howto has helped. Most users probably already knew about the phpBB forums search engine, but I hope that the Google site-specific search engine was new. Any coments or suggestions would be gladly accepted.
3ddev
