This button is the larger button with the question mark and pictures of cards. When clicked this button will ask you what you want to find and will search for the text in the specified field(s). It doesn't matter if you type capitals or not, and the stack will make the best attempt it can to find the particular sequence of characters you specify. If it can't find anything, the stack will beep and tell you so. If it does find something, you then have the option to find the same characters again, return to the last card you were at, or cancel, staying at the current card. Holding down the option key and pressing this button will allow you to find the number of occurrences of any characters you type. In finding occurrences, the stack will search EVERY field, in every regular information card. So, for example, you can find the number of times that the string "air force base" is found (over 30 times, at this writing). Short searches will not take longer than a minute or so. Spaces count, so something like "ple com" will be found in "Apple Computer". Remember, finding will only start at the current card you are on when you first start finding. Finding occurrences begins at the first card in this stack.
Something that will make finding faster is specifying the U.S. state the location or string is in. You can do this by typing the string, a comma, and then the two letter abbreviation for the state. This will only work for the U.S. states and related territories. So typing "Irvine, CA" or "irvine, ca" or even "rvin,ca" (no spaces) will first take you to the California card and then search for the string, starting at that card. You can go to a U.S. card by just typing a comma and the abbreviation, such as ",al" or ", sd". No finding will take place. This is a handy way to get quickly to a card. If the card does not exist, the stack will just start finding the specified string at the card you're at. Pressing Command-F or selecting "Find Text..." from the Area/ZIP menu has the same effect as clicking on this button.
If you tell the stack to search for multiple occurrences, you will be asked if you want to display the matching text alshis is a powerful addition to the stack, as it gives you a lot of information to choose from. Suppose you want to find the number of occurrences of "novato" in the stack and display the matching text. After searching through the entire stack, you will either be told that nothing was found or a field will be shown with the found text, and the matching ZIP codes and regions if applicable.
The time it takes to find text usually will take anywhere from 1 to within 10 seconds. Finding multiple occurrences will take longer, depending on how common the text is. If you tell the stack to display the matching text, it will take a little longer for each match that the stack finds. If any "find" or "find matching" process is taking too long, press the command key (the key to the right of the option key) and the period key at the same time. ONLY DO THIS WHEN THE "WAIT" MESSAGE IS ON THE SCREEN. This will abort the procedure and may leave undesired consequences, so press Command-period only if you absolutely must. If you find there are still pictures or alert boxes on the screen when you press Command-period, click on them to remove them.
After using the display matching option, you may find that the stack size has increased by about 25 kilobytes or more. Compacting the stack, through using the compact button, will free that space for later use.
