Tips for searching an application

In any application, you can search the current view for documents that contain text (a word or phrase) you specify. You can also search for documents using conditions and operators.

About this task

Searching a view works best when the application has a full-text index, which makes available advanced search features and faster search capability.

Decide which type of search syntax to use

About this task

By default Search employs a web-style syntax; that is, if you enter several words to search on, the documents returned in the result set will contain those words, but not necessarily in the order specified in the Search field. It is equivalent to using an AND operator between each word in the search query.

Web-style search syntax is different from Notes-style syntax, where multiple terms in a search query will find documents where those terms appear in the exact order entered in the Search field (as if they were enclosed in quotation marks).

If you prefer the web-style syntax for search queries, you need to do nothing since it is the default query type. If you prefer Notes-style syntax as the default you can either:

Select the preference Use Notes (not web) query syntax in the view search bar.
To change this preference, choose File > Preferences > User Preferences, click the Basics tab, then in the Additional Options list, select Use Notes (not web) query syntax in the view search bar.
Change the NOTES.INI setting UseFTSyntaxOnly=0 to UseFTSyntaxOnly=1.

To switch to a Notes-style syntax for a particular query without changing the default web-style preference, you can prepend a forward slash (/) to the query, for example:

/sales results

This query only returns documents with these terms in the order specified.

Use advanced search features

About this task

As long as the application to be searched has a full-text index, you can click the More twistie (or Advanced search from the Search scope drop-down menu) to refine your search using any or all of the following features:

text search options
conditions
operators
You can also limit the number of search results by changing the maximum number, and determine how to sort search results.

For more information, in HCL Notes® Help, see the topic Searching for information.

Use Word Variants

Procedure

This option finds words with the base word + certain suffixes. For example, a search for swim will also find swims, swimming, swimmer, and even swimmed. It will not find the variation swam, however, because the base word has changed, or swimmet, or swimsed because the suffixes are not acceptable with that word.

Fuzzy search

About this task

This option finds documents with content similar to your search.

Table 1. Sample queries
Sample query	Finds
user requirement	user group requirement user has a requirement
Califorrnia (incorrect spelling)	California (correct spelling)
communication	communicate, communicating, communi-cation
Palo Alto (correct spelling)	Paloalto (incorrect spelling)

Working with search results

About this task

Search displays a list of documents that match your query, along with a message in the Search bar that indicates how many matching documents were found (this information also appears in the status bar).

Matching text appears highlighted in the body of each document returned in the results. You can see the highlighted text when you open a document directly from the results list by double-clicking on it. To navigate through the matches in an open document, press CTRL+ (moves forward one match) or Ctrl- (moves backward one match) or scroll.

Note: Matching text only appears highlighted for matches found in the main body of a document. Matching text contained in one of the following areas is not highlighted:

In a document's Subject field.
In a date or number field.
In a hidden field of the document. When there is a match in a hidden field, the message Some highlights are not visible with this form displays in the status bar. If you do not see this message, try clicking the status bar once to see its history.
In file attachments and in MIME fields. If a match is found in an attachment, the title underneath the attachment icon is highlighted.

You can use two text search options when searching an application view or a domain for a document.

Click More in the Search bar or Domain Search form and select or deselect the options to turn them on or off.

Searching within results

Procedure

After the initial search completes, the Search in results option becomes enabled. Refine the search query as needed, then select the Search in results option to restrict the next search to the initial result set.

Changing the sort order for search results

About this task

You can change the sort order of search results by selecting one of the following options.

Table 2. Sort order options
Sort results by option	Description
relevance	Based on the number of matches in each matching document, places documents with the highest number at the beginning of the list.
last modified	Places those with the most recent modified date at the beginning of the list.
first modified	Places those with the oldest modified date at the beginning of the list.
keep current order (sortable)	In the order they were already sorted, marking the results as selected (checked). If the application is designed to allow it, you can sort results by clicking the small triangles in the column headers. Note: If you use this option when you search a categorized view such as the one in the Discussion application, the same matching document may be listed in the search results multiple times. This occurs for any matching document that contains multiple values in its category field -- the document is listed once for each assigned category. In the results count displayed in the status bar and the Search bar, Search counts such a document only once.
show all documents (sortable)	All documents, marking the results as selected (checked). If the application is designed to allow it, you can sort results by clicking the small triangles in the column headers.

Note: When you search in the Calendar view, sort options are limited to keep current order (sortable) and show all documents (sortable).

Saving search results

About this task

You can save search results in any application to which you have access to create a folder.

Procedure

Create a new folder in the application.
From the menu, click Edit > Select All to select all of the results.
Drag the results to the folder.