VisualAge for Java help uses an advanced, full-text search engine that returns HTML search "hits" based on your search request.
To find information you're looking for:
To get more precise search results, you can modify the search defaults. You can mix the following options together to get precisely the information you need.
To refine your searches by including or excluding information types:
By default, all infomation types except for user interface (F1) help are selected when you search. Note that at least one type or topic is always selected.
To narrow your searches by including or excluding terms:
By default, every term you enter into the text area can be included in the search results, but in searches with multiple search terms any single term can also cause a match (logical OR). For example, if you enter the terms DB2 ODBC, search will return documents that contain either DB2 or ODBC, or both. If you want all the search results to include ODBC, then the default search is too wide.
To narrow your search results in a multi-term search, you can explicitly include or exclude terms from the results. To ensure that terms are included in a multi-term search, type a plus sign (+) next to them. Type a minus sign (-) next to terms you don't want to appear in your search results. For example, if you type +DB2 +ODBC, then search will only return documents that mention both DB2 and ODBC (logical AND). If you type +DB2 -ODBC, then search will return the set of documents that mention DB2 but don't have any mention of ODBC (logical NOT).
NOTE: search does not know how to return results for a search that only includes minus terms. You must have at least one term that is not preceded by a minus sign.
To narrow your searches by looking for an exact
phrase:
For example, if you type +"mouse pointer", then only documents that contain the exact phrase will be returned. If you type +"mouse pointer" -"system pointer", then search will return all documents that include the exact phrase "mouse pointer" but do not include the exact phrase "system pointer."
NOTES: If you type "mouse pointer" without the plus sign, then the search will return documents that include either the term mouse or the term pointer, or both (the quotation marks are ignored). Search does not know how to return results for a search that only includes minus terms. You must have at least one term that is not preceded by a minus sign.
To widen complex searches with character wildcards
You can use character wildcards as placeholders to widen your searches in
any additional term or exact phrase.
For example, if you search for +database -map*, then search will return all documents containing database but not containing the terms map, mapped, maps, mapping or mappings.
To refine your searches by including fuzzy or exact
matches:
By default, search performs a number of word operations to determine a match for
terms (Fuzzy matching).
To see more the search results
Select the number of documents your search will return, up to a maximum of
250.