Help:Searching: Difference between revisions
Eric Martz (talk | contribs) |
|||
| (8 intermediate revisions by 2 users not shown) | |||
| Line 1: | Line 1: | ||
==Two search | ==Two search methods== | ||
On the left toolbar present when viewing any page in Proteopedia | On the left toolbar present when viewing any page in Proteopedia is a standard '''wiki search box''', similar to what you find in Wikipedia. The second search method is using Google to search Proteopedia with the search string "site:proteopedia.org ...", where "..." stands for the term or combination of terms you are interested in. Why have two? Performing good searches is a hard task, and the standard wiki search feature often comes up short, so we wanted to provide another option. | ||
===Disadvantages of the wiki search box=== | ===Disadvantages of the wiki search box=== | ||
Words of 3 or fewer characters in length are ignored and cannot be found, for example searching for '''MHC''' fails to find any page text matches, while doing the same search in the Google search box finds many. Words of 4 or more characters are found, e.g. '''hook'''. | Words of 3 or fewer characters in length are ignored and cannot be found, for example searching for '''MHC''' fails to find any page text matches, while doing the same search in the Google search box finds many. Words of 4 or more characters are found, e.g. '''hook''', unless they are stop words (see [[Help:Stop Words]]). | ||
===Advantages of the wiki search box=== | ===Advantages of the wiki search box=== | ||
| Line 21: | Line 21: | ||
</blockquote> | </blockquote> | ||
===Disadvantages of the Google search | ===Disadvantages of the Google search=== | ||
Recently created pages will not appear when searching using the Google search box because Google needs time to find and index new pages. Additionally, it is impossible to restrict your search to particular namespaces like you can with the wiki search. | Recently created pages will not appear when searching using the Google search box because Google needs time to find and index new pages. Additionally, it is impossible to restrict your search to particular namespaces like you can with the wiki search. | ||
===Advantages of the Google search | ===Advantages of the Google search=== | ||
Three-character length words, such as '''MHC''', are found by Google but are not found by the wiki search box. | Three-character length words, such as '''MHC''', are found by Google but are not found by the wiki search box. | ||
=="Go" versus "Search"== | =="Go" versus "Search"== | ||
In the wiki search box, using the button "Go" will take you directly to a page whose title exactly matches your search query, if it exists. Using the button "Search" will instead perform a search using your search query and take you to a page displaying the results. | In the wiki search box, using the button "Go" will take you directly to a page whose title exactly matches your search query, if it exists. Using the button "Search" will instead perform a search using your search query and take you to a page displaying the results. | ||
==Titles vs. Page Text== | |||
Search results are divided into two sections: | |||
*''Article title matches'' | |||
*''Page text matches'' | |||
This makes it easy to find articles that have your search term in their titles. | |||
==Titles Alphabetically== | |||
You can display a list of article (page) titles that begin with a specified character or characters by using the [[Special:Prefixindex]] search mechanism. | |||
*Searching for "a" lists all page titles beginning with the letter A. | |||
*searching for "alpha" lists all page titles beginning with those characters. | |||
Titles in ''italics'' are redirects to other pages. If you click a redirect, you will go to a page with a different title. Underneath the title you will see "Redirected from ...". Redirects provide alternative titles that users might look for, guiding them to the relevant page. | |||
Note that this mechanism searches '''only one namespace''' at a time. You may need to search several [[Proteopedia:Namespaces|namespaces]]. | |||
A similar mechanism is offered by [[Special:Allpages]]. | |||
==Excluding PDB code-titled pages== | |||
The ''Page text matches'' section of your search results will usually be mostly pages that are title with a 4-character [[PDB code]]. These are automatically-generated "seeded" pages, and are the most numerous pages in Protopedia. | |||
It is easy to restrict your search results to pages created by humans (which are never titled with a PDB code). At the very bottom of your search results are a group of checkboxes. Notice the line | |||
<br> | |||
:'''Include only [ ] Seeded (Automatic) pages - [ ] only Human created pages''' | |||
By checking "only human created pages" you will eliminate all the PDB code-titled pages in your results. | |||
==More powerful searching== | ==More powerful searching== | ||