Question About Partial Finds & Searches

[MattFM]

So I just realized that finding/searching in FMPro is quite limited... If I have a field with the text, "Adobe InDesign" and I perform a find for "Design" there are no results.

I understand from searching this forum now that this is because FMPro searches for words that start with... I have also seen some posts here about using custom functions to explode the field.

My question is, is there a simple workaround to enable searches/finds using partial data? Are these explode custom functions the only way?

I ask because I have created a Search field, sort of like Safari's browser has in its window, which enables my users to search for text without actually entering find mode. My Search function performs its find in all fields in the database, so the idea of trying to use the Explode custom functions on every field in every record seems like it will really bloat and bog down my database.

So I guess I'm asking, is there a simpler way to find/search for partial data, ie: Search for "ous" yields every record that may contain "Mouse" or "House" or "Joust" etc...?

[David Jondreau]

The Help File is your friend.

You can script it to add an * in front of each search term relatively easily or teach your users the FM wildcards.

[MattFM]

Genius! I didn't even think to add that... So I just added to my search script a step that now uses a local variable that adds the * before and after the users search string... Much simpler than exploding!! Thanks!