Search and Browse

You can use Search and Browse to search for content and information. You can search Web sites, document collections, WebSphere Portal sites, and content sources that are available through HTTP.

This depends on the content sources that your administrator made available for search.

Type the string for which you want to search into the Search for entry field, and click Search. Search and Browse displays the search results in a table. It also shows how long the search took. For lists that are longer than a page you can move to other pages by clicking the arrows, or by selecting a page from the pull-down menu.

Click the Search Results tab in the title bar to view the list of your search results. This is displayed by default.

Click the Browse Documents tab in the title bar to browse the available documents. If you type a search string in the Search for field and click the Search icon, Search and Browse switches to the Search Results panel. Search and Browse displays the search results in a table. The table lists the retrieved documents, together with related information.

The documents can be of different types, for example, an HTML file, a spreadsheet, a PDF, or a compressed ZIP file. Search and Browse shows columns with the following information for each document:

• The document title, the URL where the document was found, and other related information, such as the author of the document, a description, and keywords.

• The relevance score. It reflects the relevance of the document to the given query on a scale of 0 (not relevant) to 100 (most relevant) percent. For more information about how the relevance score is calculated see the topic about Portal Search in the Information Center.

• The date when the document was created.

• Occurrences of the search query string are shown highlighted in the listed documents.

Click the document name to view the document. This depends on the document type and on whether it can be viewed in the browser. Tabs are available on secondary action bars above and below the search results. You can use them to perform the following tasks:

1. Switch between Sort by Relevance and Sort by Date.

2. Toggle between the options Show details and Hide details. Show details shows the subject and category information for each document. This is the default.

If you select Show details, Search and Browse displays the following additional information:

• Optionally, the following details for each document in the Title column, if they are available:

  • The author of the document.

  • A description of the document.

  • A summary of the document.

  • The keywords for the document.

  • The document subject as found in the HTML metatag under subject.

• If categories are available for the search collection that you searched, the following details are displayed:

  • The categories that apply to the listed document. The categories are expressed by their full path, for example Root - IBM - Hardware.

  • A Browse icon. Click it to browse all documents within the same category.

  • A Search (magnifier lens) icon. Click it to repeat your search query, but apply it to this category only. You can use this option to limit the number of documents in your search result.

Notes:

1. For more information about document summaries and categories see the topic about Portal Search in the Information Center.

2. If a document is associated with more than one category, Search and Browse displays multiple lines, each with a category name, Browse icon and Magnifier Lens icon.

3. Some text of Web documents might not be accessible for search. Specifically, text that is generated by JavaScript might not be available for search.

Search syntax and usage techniques

The Portal Search Engine allows the use of the following:

Plus ( + ) and minus ( - ) signs

The plus and minus signs do not join terms, but only operate on the term that follows them.

Quotation marks ( " )

Use quotes to combine words into search phrases, for example "IBM software". When you search for strings with special query characters, such as a blank or a colon ( : ), enclose your search string in quotes.

Trailing wild cards

Use an asterisk ( * ) as a trailing wild card in your search string, for example softw* .

Using the plus and minus signs For your query, type any words that describe what you are looking for. Use the plus and minus signs as follows:

• Put a plus sign ( + ) in front of the words that you want to be present in the returned documents.

• Put a minus sign ( - ) in front of the words that must not be present in the returned documents.

• When using signs, do not leave any space between the sign and the following word qualified by the sign. 

Plus sign examples

+thinkpad

All documents retrieved must contain the word thinkpad. A single unsigned word, thinkpad, is also read this way, and is treated by the search engine as +thinkpad.

+thinkpad +drivers

All documents retrieved must contain the word thinkpad and the word drivers.

+thinkpad drivers

All documents retrieved must contain the word thinkpad, but only optionally the word drivers. 

Minus sign examples

+thinkpad -drivers

All documents retrieved must contain the word thinkpad but must not contain the word drivers. 

Notes:

1. Do not use only minus signed terms for your search; they will not produce a result list. The reason is that in this case the search terms are too vague to allow for a meaningful scoring of the found documents.

2. Use spaces between signed terms in order to distinguish them from terms that contain a minus sign, such as e-business. Note that e-business is treated as "e-business" whereas e -business is treated as optionally e , and the word business should not be contained in the resulting documents.

3. If you use the Advanced Search options and you select one of the document fields, such as Title or Author, from the Search in: pull-down list, do not use a plus sign ( + ) as a search operator in the Search for: entry field.

Search WebSphere Portal sites

When you search WebSphere Portal sites, the following options and restrictions apply:

1. When you search WebSphere Portal sites, you can search two types of portal pages:

   • Public or anonymous portal pages. These are pages that users can view without authentication by user ID and password. You can search pages on your local portal site, or on a remote portal.

   • Secured portal pages. These are pages that users can only view if they authenticate themselves to the portal by logging in to the portal with a user ID and password. You can search secured portal pages only on the local portal site on which you work. For security reasons, you cannot search secured pages of a remote portal site at which you are not logged in.

2. Your search covers only the main panels of the portlets on the portal pages. You cannot search sub-panels of portlets, that is panels to which users get by clicking links or buttons of a portlet.

3. Items in the result lists from portal site searches might not provide summary information. This depends on how your administrator has configured Portal Search. For information about a search result list item, refer to the information given under Description: for that item.

Advanced Search options

Click Advanced Search to display the advanced search options:

Search in

Use this option to select in which document field your search string should occur. Select one of the options from the pull-down list.

For example, these can be Title, Author, Description, Keywords, Updated Date, Subject, depending on the search collection. If you do not want to restrict the search to a particular field, leave the default setting Entire document.

Search for

Type your search string for the specified field into this entry box.

If you select one of the document fields, such as Title or Author, from the Search in pull-down list, do not use a plus sign ( + ) as a search operator in the Search for entry field.

Return files of type

Select the document type for which you want to search, for example PDF or HTML. If you do not want to restrict the search to documents of a certain type, leave the default setting All.

Click Add Condition to add more conditions to your search. If you specify a search string for search on entire documents, you can use additional conditions to restrict your search results to fewer documents.

For example, you can specify the query human resources for Entire document and add the restriction that the title contains the word benefits.

Click Hide Advanced Options to hide the advanced search options.

Edit or configuring Search and Browse result options

To configure the search result options...

1. Hover your mouse over the portlet title bar and view the downward arrow.

2. Click the downward arrow to open the portlet context menu with portlet mode selection options.

3. Select the appropriate option from the menu, depending on the available options and the task that you want to perform. To make changes to a particular instance of the portlet for all users, click Edit Shared Settings. To make individual changes to the portlet, click Personalize. (A Configure option might be available, depending on the configuration of your portlet. This changes how the portlet will appear to all users.) The panel for configuring, editing, or personalizing the portlet settings appears. For more information about the context menu options refer to the Information Center and search for portlet mode.

4. Make the required selections.

5. Click Save to save your configuration updates, or click Cancel if you do not want to save the updated configuration. Search and Browse returns to the main panel.

   You can also return without saving by selecting Back from the portlet context menu.

User Properties

The properties that are available for selection might depend on how the portlet is configured.

Sort results by

Select the default sort criteria for the search results. The results can be sorted either by Relevance or by Date.

You can always change this setting per session on the results page.

Sort order

Select the default sort order for the search results. The results can be sorted either Descending or Ascending.

You can always change this setting per session on the results page.

Display number of results per page

Select the number of documents that you want to be displayed in the search results page. The maximum number is 50.

Display number of documents per page

Select the number of documents that you want to be displayed in the browse page. The maximum number is 50.

Click Save to save your selection. Click Cancel to return to the main Search and Browse panel without saving your changes.

Search and Browse fields

Search for

The data entry field into which you type your search string.

1. Enter one or more words that describe the information that you are looking for.

2. Click Search.

3. After your search results are returned, you can view the displayed documents, or start a new or modified search.

Search and Browse icons

Basic Search and Browse icons

Minus and Plus sign icons

Click the Minus sign icon to hide the query field for entering your search query. Click the Plus sign icon to show the query field for entering your search query.

Search (magnifier lens) icon

Click the search (magnifier lens) icon to start your query.

Icons displayed if categories are available for the search collection that you searched

Search (magnifier lens) icon

Click the search (magnifier lens) icon for the category to repeat the same search query, but apply it to this category only.

Browse icon

Click the Browse icon to browse documents in the categories (if available) by navigating a category tree.

Icons displayed under Advanced Options

Add Condition (plus sign) icon

Click this icon to add conditions to your search.

Parent topic:

Work with the search portlets

Related information

Manage Search
Search Center

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