Searching Tips
Following are some tips to help you use the various Search pages of the site:
Select Boxes
Select Boxes (or pull-down menus) on the Search Forms provide you a list of options from which you can select one. For most Select Boxes (like Color or State/Province) the options are actually the unique values of that field in the database. The 'All' selection will essentially ignore this field in the search showing you all records that otherwise match your search criteria.
Text Boxes
These fields (e.g., 'Name') allow you to type any characters into the box to be matched against the values for that field in the database. Note that case is ignored (i.e., 'A' is treated the same as 'a'.) Leave the text box empty to ignore that field in the search.
Wildcard Characters
Most Text Boxes accept two wildcard characters: % means match any character or characters here; _ (underbar) means match any single character here. For example typing 2000% in the ID # field of an Animal Search will show you animals with ID # 2000 and 200000 through 200099. If you want just 200000 through 200099, search for 2000__ instead.
Automatic Wildcards (or Partial Matching)
Most Text Boxes (but not ID # fields) will automatically treat any entry without any wildcard characters (% or _) as if you had included a % at the beginning and end of the entry. This feature is intended to make the search more intuitive. For example, if you type salt in the name field of an Animal Search and click go, your search results will include animals with Saltaire or Salty in their name. If you include a wildcard character in one of these Text Boxes, then the automatic wildcards will not be added.
Using Multiple Search Controls
You can use as many of the search controls as you like for a single search. The search results will show you the records for which all of the search criteria are true. For example, to find all red polled bulls, run an Animal Advanced Search selecting Red, Bull, and Polled from the Color, Sex, and Horns select boxes. You will see that only a small number of animals match all these criteria.
Try Using Less Specific Search Criteria
To avoid problems with spelling in your search criteria (e.g., in the Name search text box) try using less specific criteria. For example, if you are looking for Lucifer of Knotting but you can't remember if Knotting has one or two t's, just try running a search for knot. Your search results will show you a few animals with knot in their name, of which Lucifer of Knotting will be one. Then just click the Camera button at the left of Lucifer's row in the search results to see his Animal Info Page, or click the blue P button to see his pedigree.
