Have some smart/funny/obvious comment you just have to post in a thread, but can’t be bothered to read what everyone else wrote?
Allow me to introduce you to ctrl+F (that’s command+F if you’re using a McPuter). You’ll get a little box, within which you can type a word to see if it already exists on that particular page. This works for finding words/phrases on any page with text on it.
But beware! It’s not Google. It finds phrases exactly as you type them. You may have to try a few different words to be certain no one has already used your excellent line.
MODERATOR NOTE: If any are unaware, Crotalus explains Alt-F4 in the next post. The Great Unwashed, I assume this is a (not-funny) joke rather than trolling. I certainly hope so. – Dex
That only works once per page. But you can use the Search This Thread function near the top here to search the entire thread regardless of how many pages it is.
That’s right. Say a thread is five pages long. You have to do Find (Ctrl + F) once on each page, for up to five times if it turns out what you are looking for is on the final page you look. But the Search This Thread function will search the entire thread.
It works for one page and search term at a time. After you get to the first instance of the search term, I think you have to use the Previous and Next buttons next to the search term window to navigate to additional instances.
In Firefox, just press enter to get to the next instance. The default is searching down. Click on the ^ to search upwards; then pressing enter continues upwards.
Another neat thing you can do, is when you have a thread idea, you do a Ctrl+F on a forum’s front page, and search for the subject of your choosing. And when it’s not found, you start that thread up. You’ll have answered your “what, no thread on XXX?” subject line in a mere 2 seconds, without having to look like you can’t be arsed to do a simple search! Is it really all that surprising a thread hasn’t been started on some particular TV show?