Advanced TheWord Bible Searches

Advanced Bible Searches

The Bible Search View Window has three options tabs. What we saw in the basic Bible Search page, was the "Fast" Tab.

The Bible Search Options Tabs

But there are two other Tabs here, Detailed Searches, and Bible Search Options Tab.

Detailed Searches

Our options here are as follows:

The Boolean keywords "And, Or, Not, NearV, NearW, Xor, TR (), double quotes, virtual keyboard, and Clear results window."

All of these are on the grey bar just below our search phrase or word(s).

TW gives us the option to use either straight Boolean searches or Regular Expressions. Regular Expression searches are very complicated, and are used in many programs that allow for these kinds of searches and therefore it would be best to study up on regular expressions elsewhere before trying it here in TW. Just the fact that it can do a regular expression gives the program great power in searching.

Check back here, perhaps if I get time, I will make a Regular Expression Search page.

Example of a Regular Expression Search

Just to show you a Regular Expression Search, let's say we want to find the words, "use", "useful", "usefulness", etc. We don't know how many possibilities there are so let's explore some.

Search Expression: us[esfuln]{1,9}

In RegEx, this means find all words with (there is a space before the "us"), all words beginning with space "us", and then having any of the letters, "esfuln" demanding that at least 1 letter be used and up to 9, repetitions are allowed here.

Ignore Case and Diacritics

This is for Bibles that have diacritics (like in other languages), and you can also ignore the case or require case matches, for example searching for "god" and/or "God".

Search Range

You can customize your searches to certain books of the Bible (also helpful for use in the statistics of percentages one book verses others).

Bible Search Options Tab

These options will control various aspects of the Bible search:

Auto expand/collapse tree nodes on results - This expands all the verses of the Book when you click on the Book. Otherwise it only shows the references.

Show verses as tooltips on results tree - One of the problems with using tooltips is that sometimes they just get in the way. This will toggle the tooltips off for the Bible results window. You won't see them when you pass the cursor over the reference.

No tooltips in results in results if verse text is visible - When you passing the cursor over the text reference in the search results window, you will see a tooltip with the Bible verse. Clicking this option on will mean that there will be no tooltip if the verse is visible in the Bible View window.

Short book names in results - This uses long or short names for the Bible in the search results window.

Copy all verses from ranges, not only the first one - When you search using the NEAR Boolean operator (see below), you sometimes get ranges, because the search finds situations where one word is possibly in one verse, and the second search word is in a nearby verse. This option toggles whether you want to include all intervening verses or not.

Synchronize verses' text and tooltips with Bible View - This will synchronize the Bible tooltip text with the active Bible View (the Version of the Bible you have open there).

Jump to searched Bible when clicking on a verse - This will toggle the moving of the Bible window to the verse you click on in the results window.

Show the 'Is this what you are looking for?' Box - TW tries to interpret what you write in the search phrase window, and at times it is better to get to know its' internal format for things. Here you can check this, and it will interpret what you write into what it thinks you want, and then show you what it will search on.

"NEAR" BOOLEAN OPERATOR.

TW uses Boolean operators, and one of these is the NEAR Using this will make TW search for one word or phrase "near" another (within the proximity of the other). The distance is set here in the two values below, depending on whether you want to use NEAR with verses or with words, and which is the default.

Default range for NEARv (verses) operator: - 1 to 999 verses.

Default range for NEARw (words) operator. - 1 to 9999 words.

"NEAR" operator applies by default to:

Verses - Ex. Jesus NEARv Christ

Words - Ex. Jesus NEARw Christ

Search History Options:

Separate history for each window - This will toggle a universal search history for all Bible search windows, or an individual search history for each one.

Save history on exit - This toggles whether to make the search history only for this session of TW (exiting the program will automatically clear the search history), or saving the search history from one program session to the next.

Maximum history items: This is how many search phrases are stored by the program in the Search history. 

visits since July 14, 2009