Searching a Responsive Website

• The Pageant website is responsive, so all of the most frequently viewed pages will display properly on devices ranging from smartphones to desktops. However, some older, non-responsive pages are retained as archives.
• Our search facility is also responsive, and so will work on all these devices, but with some differences between large and small screens. This help page will show you information relevant to the device you are using.
• Our software has detected that you are viewing this page on a small screen device such as a smartphone, so be aware that some older pages found by searching may not display well. large screen device such as a desktop or laptop, so all pages found by searching should display properly.

One Search Page - Two Searches

• Our site search brings you the convenience of an easy to use Simple Search together with the power of a Google Custom Search. Both cover just pages within the Pageant website.
• Clicking the search link on any Pageant web page opens our search page as a pop-up window, so the original web page will still be visible. and when it first opens, you will see two search input boxes, one for each search.

Simple Search

• Type your search terms into the input box at the top of the search page. If you type several words, the simple search will find only those pages which have ALL the words you enter (it is a Boolean AND search).
• Do not try to search for "phrases in quotes" - it will just search for the words in the phrase. If you need this type of search, then use the Google Custom Search.
• The Simple Search is case-insensitive - search words need only be entered in lower case.
• The Simple Search will find pages containing words starting with the word typed - e.g. 'kit' will find pages with 'kitchen'.
• Common words based on the DVL/Verity Stop Word List are not indexed. This reduces the size of the database and the download time. However, as most of these words could be the start of a word which is indexed, you will still get some results. Try 'in'.
• The Simple Search ignores wildcards like '*' and '?'.
• Start you search by clicking or hitting the return key.
• Search results are displayed in a single scroll-down list below the input box. They are ranked according to the frequency of the search words on Pageant pages, so that the most relevant pages should be at the top.
• Clicking an item in the list opens that page in the same window as the original page, so the list of results will still be visible. and the search results are no longer visible.
• If you want to follow another link, simply go back to the list of search results and click another link.
• Use the back button to get back to the list of results if you want to follow another link.
• You can clear the search terms for a fresh search by clicking reset. (Note - this will also clear any Google Custom Search results.)
• Remember to close the search page when you have finished.

Google Custom Search

• The Google Custom Search uses the second input box lower down the search page. If you have just done a Simple Search, you may need to scroll down to find it.
• It is just like a normal Google search, except that it is restricted to pages on the Pageant website. It has more search options than the Simple Search, such as searching for "specific phrases", and searching for images.
• If you are familiar with Google searches, then you should just go ahead and use the Custom Search. Otherwise have a look at Google Search help pages.
• Search results are displayed as a scrollable list below the Google search input box. So it is possible to have Simple Search and Google results visible at the same time. On a large screen device, your browser should allow you to switch to a full screen view so that more results can be seen at once. This is particularly useful for an image search.
• The Google results list can be cleared and a new search started by clicking the X at the right end of the input box.

Searching within the page

• When you are viewing a page you have found, you can search the page text for words or phrases. Some browsers have a 'Find on page' option in the menu system, but in all cases you can get to this by pressing the control key at the same time as F. On smartphones you will need to access the menu system to find an option called 'Find on page' or similar.
• In most cases, the specified text will be highlighted wherever it occurs on the page.

The Simple Search facility is based on a site search provided by BuildWebSite4u, and can be downloaded for free use.

Feedback

Please use the website feedback form if you have any questions about about using our search facility.