Navigating this site

The discussion below explains the various tabs of the left navigation bar. The bar is a constant throughout this site, and provides invaluable resources.

- My Start Page: Clicking on this button from anywhere in the site returns you to your customized start page.
- Hosted Projects: This page lists all projects hosted on this site, organized by category, with important details: project name, type of license, and a short description of what the project is about. Click on any project listed to visit the project's home page for more information.
- Help: A link to this help document you are currently reading.
- Site FAQ: Basic questions and answers about this site.
- Feedback: A page where you can submit feedback on this website and submit requests for technical support. Login/Logout: If you are not logged in to the site, login/password fields appear in the navigation bar. When you are logged in, a logout link lets you log you out of the site.

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Site Search

The site search functionality filters through all pages on the site, with the exception of mailing lists and cvs, for the criteria specified in the search field. You can use the search field to quickly access pages of specific interest to you. For instance, if you wanted to access information on open source, but don't remember how to navigate through the site, you can enter "open source" in the search field and click on the Go button. A search through all of the pages on the site will return a page listing of the top 40 results of the search entered in order of computed relevance. Each item title is linked to the page so that you can access it by clicking on the link.

The site search allows you to use the boolean operators "and", "or", and "not" as well as a combination of any of these to refine your search criteria.

And

> The "and" operator allows you to search for combinations of words on the site. For example, entering a search for "projects and users" will return all pages with references to projects and users.

> note: if you enter two words with no operator between them, the site search functionality assumes that you want to use the "and" feature. Example, entering "projects users" will return the same results as entering "projects and users".

Or

> The "or" operator allows you to specify the search of two different terms. An "or" statement will return all pages which includes either term stated in the search criteria. For example, entering a search for "projects or users" will return all pages that contain projects as well as all pages that contain users.

Not

> The "not" operator allows you to refine the criteria by excluding specific terms from the search. For example, entering a search criteria of "projects not users" will return all pages referencing projects that do not also contain information about users.

Complex strings

> You can use a combination of boolean operators to further refine your search. For instance, entering a search string of "projects and users not admin" will first search out all pages containing "projects" and "users" then, from those selected, filter out pages containing "admin".

The site search does not include mail lists or cvs. Mail lists has it's own, while cvs has no search mechanism.

Mailing lists - have their own search mechanism. You'll be able to search each mailing list from the archive page of the mailing list.

CVS - does not have a search capability. In general, one should know the location of the file to be used in cvs before attempting to check it out.

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