Bar-Ilan's Responsa
Table of Contents (Continued)
- Searching
- Displaying Search Results
- Displaying Full Texts
- Working with Multiple Texts
- Printing
- Saving your Results
- Biographies
- Appendix: List of Databases
Searching
Executing a search
To begin, choose Search from the
main menu bar. To perform a regular search, simply type your
query in the
long rectangular bar at the top of the search window, and hit enter.
To perform an Easy Search, click on the Easy Search button
and follow the instructions above. If you make a mistake
and wish to erase your query, the Clear button will let you start over again. If
you find that the search is taking too long, you can cancel it by pressing ESC.
Return to Searching
Filtering Out Unwanted Search Results
Especially if your search involves grammatical variants, you're likely to locate many
irrelevant forms. One way to circumvent this is by selecting Filtered Search. Once
the first stage of the search is complete, the
Selection and Filtering window will
appear on screen, listing the forms located so far and giving you the opportunity to
filter out those you do not want. On the right side of the window is a list of the key
words in your search request; on the left, the list of forms found, in decreasing order
of frequency. To filter out forms, select one of the key terms on the right and then
click those forms on the left which you wish excluded from the search. Should you wish to
filter out most of these forms, you can click on the items you want and then choose
Invert. This will automatically reverse your choice, so that only the forms you clicked
will be retrieved. Proceed with the search by hitting enter.
Return to Searching
Working with Previous Searches
Responsa offers you several ways to work with previous searches. You can repeat
past searches by reexecutuing past queries (Responsa automatically
saves a list of these queries). Alternatively, you can save the search results
themselves, enabling you to review them at a later date without actually doing the search.
Moreover, you can combine different sets of saved search results in various ways.
Reusing Previous Searches
To reuse a previous search, select Former Queries on the right hand side of the search
screen. Select the query you want to reuse by double-clicking it. Conversely, if you
are no longer interested in these searches, you may remove them by with the Delete Query
or Delete All Queries button.
Working with Previous Search Results
To work directly with former results, select Former Searches from the regular search screen.
The Former Searches screen will appear, listing and briefly describing
previously saved searches. Click on the results you want to use, and choose Search
Screen at the bottom.
Saved results can be used as a search component in new queries in various ways.
- You can combine different sets of results. For example, if you want to search
for
and
in a single search (normally impossible;
see above), you can search for
$
$, save the results, as search 1, and
then type the following query:
(#/1)
- You can also specify multiple saved searches when combining results. For example,
if you had already searched for
# and saved the search results as
search 2, you could search for all occurences of either
(search 1) or
by typing
- You can use Responsa to perform additional searches on saved results,
treating them as if they were regular databases. For example, if you had saved the
information on
and
above, you can search in it for material
on Shabbat by typing
#
# (2/1)
:
This will find passages where
with grammatical prefixes and suffixes
appears in the same sentence as your two other terms.
- Alternately, if you had saved the results of 1 and 2 as search 3, you could do the same
by typing
## 3
:
Return to Searching
Limiting a Search to Particular Texts
If you were only interested in searching in particular texts of a database, such as
one tractate as opposed to the entire
Talmud, choose Select Books, click the titles of
those texts to be included in your search, and hit enter. To extend your search back to
the full database, simply click Select Books again.
N.B. Oddly enough, regardless of how you limit your search, Responsa
searches the entire database. The results are only displayed from the texts you specified,
but the search itself will not proceed any faster.
Return to Searching
Return to Table of Contents
Displaying Search Results
Once a search is completed, you can view your results in a variety of ways. You can
move through the list by hand, skip to a particular passage,
display varying amounts of text from the located passages, or
move from your reference list to longer sections of text.
Moving Directly to a Passage
In addition to your normal array of arrow, PageUp, PageDown, Home and End keys to move
you through your list of results, you may also skip directly to a particular passage.
From Display from the main menu bar, choose either Skip to Book or Skip to Number.
The first will bring up a list of available book- or section-titles; the second, simply
allow you to type in the number of the desired search result.
Varying the Amount of Text Displayed
To vary the amount of context you see with your search results, select Display again.
You have three choices: Long will display 3-4 lines of text with the references, Brief
will display only a single line of text, and Sources will display the
reference list alone.
Expanded Display Windows
You can also display longer sections of text. To do so, double-click any part of the
search result you want to view; an expanded display window will appear with the full
text opened to your particular reference. This is a great way to examine a quote's overall
context.
Once in the expanded display, you can view other parts of the text which has been opened.
Selecting +
[or -
,
-
], for example, will let you see the following
page; - will let you see the previous one. (Interestingly
enough, this option will only work once: you cannot page back multiple times.)
Should you wish to view another search result in the expanded display, selecting
Result+ or Result- will replace the current text with that of the following or previous
reference.
Locking Windows
If you want to keep the current text but open another in a new
display, you can use Lock Window from the File menu. Now, using the Result+/- button will bring
the search result into a new window.
When viewing passages from the Bible, Talmud Bavli, or
Shulchan Aruch from this screen, you may also access
commentaries on these texts. Choose 
to display commentaries on the Bible,
Rashi to display this commentary on the Talmud, or
to display Mishnah Berurah on the Shulchan Aruch.
If you're having trouble finding a passage, you can search for a word in the expanded display
as well. Simply choose Find at the top of this window. While it will not allow you to specify
grammatical prefixes or suffixes, it will enable you find strings of text even when embedded
in the midst of other letters. Looking for 
, for example, will find
not only expressions such as 
, but also things like
.
Return to Table of Contents
Displaying Full Texts
There are times that, instead of searching, you want to go straight to a particular text. To
do so, select Text from the main menu bar. If the text you want to display is in the "active"
database, click the title of your choice. If not, you'll first have to select a New Database.
Once this is done, specify the precise location you're looking for. If you must specify more than
one location, such as the 
and
of a page of Talmud, or
and
of responsum, Responsa will prompt
you accordingly. Hit Enter.
You can have up to five texts of your choice displayed at any one time.
Simply lock each window to force the next text into a new one.
Return to Table of Contents
Working with Multiple Texts
As indicated above, normally you can only perform one search at a time with Responsa.
You can circumvent this, however, by running multiple instances of the program simultaneously.
Use Alt-Tab to return to the Program Manager, and double-click again on the Bar-Ilan icon.
N.B. When you are finished, you will need to close each one seperately.
However, Responsa only saves one set of defaults--the one in the window you close
last, so the order in which you do this matters.
Return to Table of Contents
Printing
After performing a search or displaying a text, you can print all or part of your results.
Select File from the menu bar of the window whose contents you want to print. To print
all the results or the entire text located, choose Print All. To print only what you see
in the current window, choose Print Window. Should you find that the machine is printing
gibberish, talk to a consultant; our technical specialist will put things back in line.
Return to Table of Contents
Saving your Results
There are two ways in which you can save material you've been working with. One uses
a format you can immediately recall and reuse in other searches--see
above; the other saves to a text [ASCII] file which can
later be used with any Hebrew word processor.
Saving Search Results for Reuse by Responsa
From File in the main menu bar, select Save Search. To save all the search results or texts
located, choose Save All.
If you want to save only selected results,
go through the list by hand: click next to those you want, or alternatively, click next to
those you don't want and hit Reverse Selection from the Display menu. Save All
will then save the results you have selected.
Saving to a Text [ASCII] File
If you need to save all the results or texts located, choose Save All under File in the
main menu bar. If you need only certain results, select those you
are interested in and then choose Save All. If you are only interested in the current contents
of the window, choose Save Window. A standard Windows screen will appear, prompting you to give
a name to your file. If this is a new set of results, insert your disk in drive a: and choose
the appropriate option under
Drives. Type your filename in and press Enter. If a file of this
name already exists, you may either Replace the contents of that file with your new information,
or Append your results to that file.
Return to Table of Contents
Biographies
One final thing to note: in addition to performing searches and displaying texts, you can
pull up biographies of all the authors whose words are available in the responsa databases.
To do so, choose Miscellaneous from the main menu bar. In the menu that appears, select
Biography. Scroll through the alphabetical list, and double-click on the title of your
choice. Once the text has been displayed, you can print or
save the contents of this window.
Return to Table of Contents
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