The Search Screen lets you select which records to find from the database. There are two sections to the Search Screen:
· Text Field Criteria – lets you type in words, parts of words, or phrases that are searched for in text fields (such as map-maker’s name, map title, region).
· Numeric Field Criteria – lets you specify limits or ranges for information in numeric fields (such as date, price, map size).
You may specify either text field criteria, numeric field criteria, or both. If you specify both, then only records which meet both the text and the numeric criteria will be returned.
Once you have entered criteria into the text or numeric fields (or both), simply click the Perform Search button to execute the search. A new Search Results window will be displayed showing a table of the matching records. Initially the list of matching records will be displayed in the Search Results window. See the section on the Match List for a description of this window and how it is used. Note that you can have more than one Search Results window open at a time. You can return to the Search Screen window at any time and request a new search. Your previous search criteria will still be filled in, so that you can easily make small changes to fine tune your search. If the Search Screen window is hidden underneath other windows, click on the "Antique Map Price Record" button in the Windows taskbar; this will bring the Search Screen window forwards.
If you have opened a number of Search Results windows, when you’ve finished looking at the results, you can close them all at once by choosing Close All Search Results Windows from the File menu. This is quicker than going to each Results window in turn and closing it.
If your search criteria match no records, a note will be displayed indicating this.
If your search criteria match more than 3,000 records, you will be notified of this, and you will be given the option of displaying just the first 3,000 matching records. Since you will not be able to see the rest of the records, you may prefer to cancel and return to the Search Screen, where you can add additional criteria that will refine your search so as to produce a smaller number of matching records.
The Clear Fields button, in the lower-left-hand corner of the Search Screen, clears out all of the data-entry fields and resets the text-search field choices to their initial settings. If you are returning to the Search Screen to perform a new search, the values entered for the previous search are still there. This facilitates making a minor change to the search criteria. However, if you now want to perform a completely new search, it is easier to clear out the old values by using the Clear Fields button than it is to delete the values in the various text entry boxes one by one.
The program can be set to use a large or a small font size. This is controlled by the Font Size menu. Initially the Font Size is set to Large. Depending upon the resolution of your monitor, you may find the text unnecessarily large. In this case, select Small from the Font Size menu. When you change the Font Size, any open Search Results windows will be closed, and the Search Screen will be cleared out (as if you had hit the Clear Fields button). The program will remember the last Font Size selection, so that the next time you invoke the program, it will begin with the last-used Font Size. (If you are running at a very low screen resolution these font choices are not available.)
Note: The Search Results window allows you to further control text size displayed in the match list and the item details display. These choices are described in the section on the Match List.