I seem to have lost the technique of searching the Forum.
After putting a name into the search box at the top right of
the Forum Index I am unable to see where to click to set the search
into motion. Can anyone tell me where I am going wrong?
Many thanks in anticipation.
Peter.

Hitting the return key will start the search.

Mike,
Many thanks. It is so simple when you know how. Once again many thanks.
Peter

Hi all,
while we're on the general "search" subject, I was wondering whether there is a facility for quickly searching the photo gallery, apart from physically browsing thro' it of course. I believe the "old" website had a separate search facility for the gallery ?. I've used the website's main search box but it doesn't seem to find photos, or maybe that's just a failing of my old pc ?.
Many thanks Jeff.

Hi Jeff

If you go onto the Photo Gallery and scroll down a bit there is a list of Photo Gallery Categories that you can just click on to view. Is that what you were referring to?

Chris

Hi Chris,
thanks for your reply. Yes I knew there was the index list, which is fine in itself although still not a "search" facility as such. However and thanks (in a good way) to the continued success and growth of the Gallery some of the categories run to several pages, plus a few of their titles are a little non-specific as to their contents. Therefore I was thinking it might sometimes be considerably quicker to be able to search, say a family surname, or a specific building eg a church, to then produce a list of hits, thus saving what in some instances can be quite a lengthy browsing process across several categories. I myself have been thro the various categories several times over the years, yet it still can me take a long time to track-down specific photos with which to help answer a forum post, for example. Hence I wondered if it was just a case of me not using the site properly ?

I remember taking a while with the old site to realise there were 2 distinct "search boxes" which would give different results, these were in addition to the forum search by the way. I'm very pleased there is now just one search box, better for all, particularly new-comers. However, and as said I could be wrong, but I think these "old site" searches did include the Gallery section, whereas the "new" one does not as far as I can see. Hence I was really asking whether there was a method of directly "word" searching the photos, and if so what it was ?. I realise that introducing a new/improved search facility may be excessively expensive/difficult, and I'm not suggesting this is essential, but I thought it might be a fairly simple yet worthwhile "tweak" to the site's existing search facility.

Since first posting I've done a few experiments and am pleased to see that specific photos in the Gallery can be found using Google-type search engines, which is great, but not everyone thinks to do this in addition to using the site's own search box.
I think it can only help the site and forum grow and flourish if these wonderful photos can be more easily found.

Thanks again for your input, Jeff.

PS While on the subject of the Gallery, please may I ask how best to answer the queries attached below some of the photos, where their contributing owners ask for help identifying people in their photos ? Altho the photos often contain the name of their contributing owners, sometimes those names cannot be easily found within the list of forum users, so direct emails aren't practical (I have tried this route). I guess the only way for now is to post on the forum, but is this a surefire way the information will get back to the owner of the photo; I do hope so but would like clarification, please ?.
Again, without wishing to create too much extra burden on the hardworking admin, perhaps it would be possible to include an email "envelope" icon in the text where a photo asks for input, or similar ? If this was done when a photo was newly added to the Gallery, hopefully it wouldn't create too much extra work ?.
Just a thought.

In response to the request we have looked into the possibility of creating a search facility for the Photo Gallery. As Jeff commented there was a search facility on the old site but we were not able to implement this on the new one at the time it was built and unfortunately it dropped off the list due to more important matters that needed our attention. We have now brought it back to the top of the list and this evening we have implemented a new facility which is Google based and hopefully it will meet the needs of our users. You can find it at the foot of each Photo Gallery page.
In the PS Jeff asks how best to answer the queries attached to some of the photos and we would ask that information is sent using the Contact Us form and we can then update the information attached to the photograph so that all benefit.

Wow !
Thanks Admin for such a fast and full response, very kind to put it mildly. Thanks too for confirming my recollections re the old site's search boxes - my memory is beginning to play silly tricks on me these days so it's nice to have been right for a change. Recently I've had a few issues when accessing some websites, which I eventually discovered was due to my old pc & web-browser combination, hence I honestly expected to find I was the only user who couldn't search the gallery (altho I did try searching with 3 different machines before posting). Thanks too for clarifying best course of action for commenting on individual photos.
atb Jeff.