In the search form for 'Characters', the first input field is your search criteria. This is the words and/or phrases that you are looking for.

The next field indicates what language you will be using for your search criteria. For instance if you type "praise spring" in the 'search for' box, then you would select "english" here, because the words you are searching for are english. Likewise, if you type "wihng cheun" then you would select "cantonese", and mandarin if you typed "yohng cheun". So this field simply indicates what language you typed your search in.

The next select box is the 'sort by' field. This tells the application how to deliver the results to you. If you want them listed alphabetically by their english spelling, then select english. Likewise for cantonese and mandarin.

In conjuction with the previous field, the next one indicates whether or not you want the results listed in 'ascending' or 'descending' order. Descending simply means that you start with the highest match and list down. For example, the alphabet listed in descending order would start with "zyxwvut...". While ascending order would start "abcdef...".

For your reference: A 'bare word' means any one word, not inside "quotation marks". A 'phrase' is any series of words contained inside "quotation marks". A 'term' is the Chinese character or Wing Chun glossary item that you are looking for.

To look for a phrase, enclose it in double quotation marks (").

You may construct your search using 'AND', 'OR' to create a conditional search. The conditional 'AND' is assumed whenever words or phrases appear next to each other. For instance if you enter :

praise spring

'praise AND spring'

If you want to look for a term containing either words but not neccesarily both you would write:

praise OR spring

You may freely mix words and phrases in your search. Phrases are treated in the same way as bare words. For example :

"praise spring" "everlasting spring"

Will be understood as :

"praise spring" AND "everlasting spring"

The words 'AND' and 'OR' may not be used as bare words in a search query. They will always be assumed to be conditional operators. However, if they are part of a phrase, ie in quotation marks, then they will be treated as part of a normal search string.

If you wish to search for terms that contain an exact phrase, you will need to put it in "Quotation Marks". The term will only match if the same sequence of words appears in it. Consider the difference between these two searches.

1) praise AND spring
2) "praise spring"

A term will match number one if the the words appear anywhere inside it without regards to where they are at. However a term will only match number two if the word 'praise' is immediately followed by the word 'spring'.

The Wildcard character '*' is used to represent any alphabetic character. Use this when you want to search for terms that begin or end with a certain letter, or have certain letters in the middle. For instance typing :

wi*

Will match any word that begins with 'wi', such as wihng, wing or winter. *Note*: You may not use '*' by itself. It must be joined with an additional letter. Also you may not use multiple '*'. Searches such as 'wi**' will produce an error.