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Search the entire Mac OS X Hints database of current and past news hints
Key Words: Titles Only
Date: to (Date Format YYYY-MM-DD)
Topic:
Type:
Results:   per page
Search Instructions: [Also see this hint on searching macosxhints]
Note that all words are spelled with their American English spelling variants:
color instead of colour, favor instead of favour, etc.

Explanation of fields:
  • Key Words: Same as the simple search box; enter your search term(s), separated by spaces. The pop-up at the end of the entry box lets you choose between the default "All of these words" (all search terms have to appear on a page, in any order), "any of these words" (just one of the words you entered must appear on a page), and "exact phrase" (the words must all appear on the page, and appear exactly as you typed them). Do not use quotes in the search box, even if you're doing a phrase search!
  • Date: As shown, enter a date range using YYYY-MM-DD format. For instance, to search for all items posted in December of 2003, enter 2003-12-01 and 2003-12-31 in the two entry fields.
  • Topic: Tell the search engine whether to search across all topics, or within just one. At this time, you cannot search on more than one, but less than allyou, topics.
  • Type: Tell the search engine whether to return matches in the hints themselves (the default), the Comments section, the Links section, or in All sections.
Examples and search techniques:
  1. Use more than one word, and try to identify "common" words that are likely to be present in the hint itself. For instance, to find a hint about replacing the Finder's toolbar icons, try a search on Finder toolbar replace icon. Don't search on "replace the toolbar icons in the Finder," as those words are not likely to necessarily all appear in your search!
  2. The search engine cannot find partial words. For instance, a search on iCal will find not only pages containing references to Apple's calendar program, but pages that contain words like "topical" and "analytical" as well. To work around this, add more words for context -- iCal month.
  3. Most of the time, you'll want to use "All of these words" mode. Phrase searching, though, can be useful when you're 100% positive you remember seeing a hint and you know an exact phrase in the title or body. It's also useful to find all hints that use the same commands, for instance defaults write in phrase mode will return a bunch of hints that have to do with using this UNIX method of modifying preference files. There are very few (never?) times when you'll want to use the "Any words" mode; this will always return a ton of matches for any search you enter.
  4. Use the date range to restrict the results. If you're trying to find a hint you know was published after July of last year, for instance, enter 2003-07-01 and 2003-12-31 in the date range boxes to narrow your search before you even start.
The search process here isn't perfect, but hopefully these hints help you get the most out of it!