The ICON Members' Forums have been live just over a month, and already there are more than 50 members, 75 topics and 200 posts to the forums. Based on the Forum statistics, many more folks are reading and learning from the posts. Make the ICON Forums one of your stops whenever you are online. You never know what you may learn!

Good "netiquette" (Internet etiquette) requires that you review previous posts to a forum or newsgroup prior to posting your question. This prevents the same questions from being asked again and again, AND it gets you a quicker answer when your question is one that has already been answered. The ICON Forums contain a built-in SEARCH feature that allows you to search by keyword in selected forums, by date, or even by member.

You can access the SEARCH feature by clicking the Search link at the top of any ICON Members' Forums page. You need not be logged in (or even registered) to use the SEARCH feature. In the Search For box, type the keywords for which you want to search. In the example, "Paint picture" are the keywords. Then select one of the radio buttons. Search for all Words is the default selection, and in this case, would return posts containing both the words "paint" and "picture. Match exact phrase would return posts containing the phrase, "paint picture". Match any of the words would return posts containing either the word "paint" or the word "picture".
In the Search Forum dropdown box, you may limit your search to only one forum, such as Digital Imaging, or you may search All ICON Forums. In the Search In dropdown box, you define whether you want to search for the keyword(s) in either the Entire Message or just in the Subject Only line of the message. In most instances, you will want to choose Entire Message.
Be sure to check the Archived Posts box if you want to search ALL posts to the forum. Periodically, posts to the forum are archived to reduce the number of current posts (and therefore the page load time) of the forum. For example, Mary Phillips' Windows articles for the past year are included in Archived Posts. The Search By Date dropdown box allows you to search by Any Date (the default) or to narrow your search by selecting a different time period. Finally, Search by Member allows you to search by All Members (the default) or to narrow your search to a specific member.

Upon completing your selections, click the Search button, and the results will be returned. You will find your search keyword(s) highlighted in yellow in the results that are returned to you. If you do not get any results, try a different keyword(s). Reviewing search results is like reading the encyclopedia. Some of the results will only remotely, if at all, relate to your particular question, and yet they may give you a broader understanding of the topic or even help you rephrase your question in a way that allows you to get a better answer.
If, upon completing your search, you still do not have an answer to your question, then register (if you haven't already), log in, and post your question. Happy searching!