Help with Search

This WebSite has a unique, powerful, flexible search and browsing system. We have tried to mimic what you do to browse a paper catalogue. You would want to look at the first few pages, browse the last few pages and sample middle pages. You would want to turn pages, go forwards and backwards. You would want to bookmark several pages for reference later. You would look in the index to find your interests and then browse forward and back from that point. How nice in a paper catalogue to have, in addition, the pages of interest point themselves out to you, but of course in paper you can't. But on this WebSite you can do all of these things.

After a search, the results pages in which your key words or phrases are to be found are displayed in the Results box as a list of links and page titles. Click once on each or any results page link and a new window will open up to display the page. You can then scroll through the page to find what you wanted. You can scroll forwards or backwards from that point. You can move the results window around your screen. Your full list of search result pages remains available to you at all times and you merely have to click on the next results page link to continue with your investigations.

Note:  After clicking on the first results page, typing a Ctrl F (Control F) will bring up a local search box. This will help you to find your keywords or phrase within each page. Enter your keywords or phrase once more and then press Find. Your keywords will be highlighted. At the end of the first page press Cancel to kill off the local search box. On the next or any page, pressing Ctrl F will bring back the local search box with your search words remembered. Each press of Find will highlight your keywords on that page.

You can use the Minimise/Maximise controls and the Taskbar to have open any number of results pages all at once, subject to your WebBrowser settings. These multiple results pages are available continually to you and represent Bookmarks. You can save each page for later research.

To specify what you want to search for, use the following rules:

To check that a word or any of the words in a list appear on a page, tick the OR box. Then click in the Find box and enter your key words separated by  spaces.

To check that a word or all of the words in a list appear on a page, tick the AND box. Then click in the Find box and enter your key words separated by  spaces.

To check that a phrase appears on a page tick the PHRASE box. Then click in the Find box and enter your phrase with each key word separated by a space.

If you want the search to respect the case of your key words or phrase then, optionally, tick the CASE box. Otherwise, upper or lower case is not relevant in searches.

If you want the search to find partial words that match your key words or phrase then, optionally,  tick the PARTIAL box. Otherwise, the search will only look for whole words that match yours.


Finally, the display of search results on this WebSite is based upon in-situ identification of the lots in which you are interested. In other words, we have deliberately avoided search regimes which EXTRACT the matched lots from the catalogue. We feel our approach closely matches the browsing instincts of most collectors. If when you are browsing through a search results page you cannot readily see the key words or phrase you wanted (although you know they are there) you can quickly check that page by pressing  CTRL F  to bring up a local search box.

Examples

To find any 17th century silver tankards, for example, you would do an AND search as described above, searching for the key words Silver Tankard 17th . Case is ignored unless you have ticked the Case box.

If you wanted to search for all the silver items in the catalogue, you would do an OR search as described above, searching for the key word  Silver . In the results window, you can then scroll through the catalogue from that point using the forward/backward controls at the bottom of each catalogue page.

If you wanted to search for all Doulton Burslem you would do a PHRASE search by ticking the Phrase box , clicking in the Find box and entering the phrase Doulton Burslem . Links to the page(s) on which the phrase occur will be displayed in the Results box together with the Sale date and Lot number range of each page.

Questions

When I click on a results page within the CatBrowser results box, a results window does not open up. In fact, nothing happens.

There has been some corruption of the Java Virtual Machine (JVM) within your local computer, most likely due to use of certain kinds of anti-virus software. Uninstall any anti-virus software and try again. If this does not work, then contact your supplier or Microsoft direct to find out how to reload the JVM from the Microsoft Website.

Also, if the Browser you are using is not Java 1.1 compatible the search process will not work at all. So, Netscape 3.0 and Internet Explorer 3.0 will not work.

What screen size and settings get the best out of the catalogue system?.

If you use a 17 inch CRT or a 15 inch TFT display with a colour setting of 16 bit Hi Color and a resolution of  1024x768, you will find that one search results window fits an exact catalogue width. You can then open many simultaneous results windows and be able to see them all and the CatBrowser Box at the flick of the mouse.

Feedback

If you have any comments or questions you would like to resolve, then you can contact us by email by clicking

enquiries@pacts.co.uk

We would be pleased to hear your views on the CatMaker/CatBrowser system.

Click here to start searching