As a newbie, I’d like to see if a topic has already been discussed, and to look up posters who seem to know a lot about something I’m interested in, etc. Is there a guide to searching for past posts, posters, and such?
Click on the magnifying glass to search, and on ‘options’ for the advanced search.
You can also click on anyone’s avatar, and then click again to get the details, posts, etc. of that person.
Cool. Thanks. You’d think this would be in some prominent FAQ, no? I’m especially dumb about using icons–I prefer big prominent WORDS like “SEARCH HERE” to a magnifying glass etc.
Words may be more helpful, yes. However they take up quite a bit of real estate on the screen. A well-chosen icon will be much smaller than words, especially in languages that are lengthy. “Search here” in German for example, is “Suche hier”. Not too bad. But German can be especially difficult, like these for example…
Gender — Geschlecht
Enter — Eingeben
Exit — Ausgang
Speed Limit — erlaubte Höchstgeschwindigkeit
(from Google Translate)
… it becomes even more problematic. Or even downright ridiculous.
I’m not really complaining, more like EXplaining why I need to ask so many dumb questions. My brain just doesn’t do icons.
Aside from clicking the magnifying glass icon, you can press the hotkey ‘/’, or the alternate hotkey ‘Ctrl+Alt+f’, and the search bar will come up.
You can also favorite this URL,
https://boards.straightdope.com/search
~Max