figure 1: the search window
In edit mode you can make changes to the various fields of an entry but you cannot visit other entries until you have left edit mode by either saving or discarding your changes to the entry.
When you initiate your first search of the dictionaries, the search window will appear as it does in figure 1 below.
You type the word or words you wish to search for in the window preceding the search button. If you click on the words refine options under the search button a panel will appear on which you can select to search by case, by whole words, and so forth. The first image in figure 2 shows how you might set up a search for the word hat in the English dictionary. The second figure shows the the results. Note that the words Search Results are replaced with 9 matches.
Figure 3 shows some of the ways in which you can refine your search to return only those entries which most interest you. For a discussion of how to write complex searches, see the tutorial on searching the Linguru dictionaries.
The first example in figure 3 shows a search for entries in the Welsh dictionary whose topic expression ends in u and which have the word verb in their class field. It is a case-sensitive search, meaning an entry will be considered a match only if the u and verb in question are in lower case -- the case in which they are written in the search field.
The second example in figure 3 shows a search for entries in either dictionary which contain both QUESTION and DFH. An entry is considered a match only if these words occur in either the definition or the comments field. Also, only those words will be considered whose definition or comments field has been edited within the last 31 days. This would be a pretty good way to search for questions asked in the last month by user DFH. Four of the results returned by this search are preceded by en-, one by cy-. This indicates that they are in the English dictionary and Welsh dictionaries, respectively.
Note the words highlighted in blue in the first example in figure 3. If you click on a word in the Search Results list, its entry will appear in the relevant dictionary pane. You can use the arrow keys to scroll through these results. Note also the small yellow triangles next to the word matches. These are forward and back buttons. You can use these to scroll through the last 20 searches you have performed.