Clicking on the triangle beside the "Find" box on the Tool Bar, or selecting Search from the index menu or typing Control-F (Apple-F on the Mac) will pop up the search dialog, which contains a number of fields which can be used to refine a search. Files returned will match all the conditions given, but the modification time fields can be left blank and the size fields left 0 to indicate those fields match any file. The "Contains", "File Name" and "Folder Path" fields all must contain the * wild card character ( ) if they are to match everything. These fields all have a check box to the right of them, which can be used to indicate that the field contents are a regular expression.

The fields are:

Contains: Words or phrases contained in the files sought. If a simple list of words is given, then all of those words must be present in the target file, but wild cards and logical operators can be used to construct much more elaborate conditions. (Search Phrases) If you wish files to be selected without regard to their contents, place a single "*" wild card character in the field.

A regular expression can be used in this field if the box to the right of the field is selected.

File Name: This field can be used to limit the results to files with a particular kind of name, typically using the "*" wild card character. For example to limit the results to just files with the "txt" extension, you could use

*.txt

or if you wanted just files with the name "test", but with any extension, then

test.*

would work.

Note that only the "*" wild card character is supported in this field and the logical operators available in the contents field cannot be used here. However more advanced criteria can be specified by entering a regular expression and checking the box to the right. For instance to limit the results to files with an extension of either "txt" or "doc" the regular expression

txt$|doc$

could be used.

Folder Name The folder name criteria applies to the full path name of the folder (directory) that contains the file. Use the star wild card or a regular expression to enter just a portion of the path.
Max Results This is the maximum number of results to return from a search. If more files match the criteria, the sort order (see the display page) is used to determine which files are returned.
Last Modified These fields can be used to limit the results to files modified before or after a specific date. The date format must conform to the formats that are specified in the regional/international system settings on your computer, but these will be the same as shown in the file results table. Time values are ignored and the time used will be 00:00 on the specified date.
Size These fields can be used to limit the results to files of specific sizes. The values must be numbers and represent the number of bytes in the file.
Referrals If the index has commands to refer searches to other indexes or other machines (see referrals), then a list of the referral names will appear at the bottom of the search dialog along with a check box for each. There will also be a check box for current (local) index. Which indexes are actually searched can be set by checking the referrals you wish to use.