Ok first off, I can't see a way if its there already!?!?

As this site offers support covering such a HUGE range of topics, it makes it a little hard to find threads that my knowledge might be usful, especially when going through the unanswered threads section.

I would like to see a way of filtering my search results, perhaps based on choices I make in the control panel for example, so that I can when I follow the Unanswered Threads link, I do not get any threads relating to IE or programming languages.

Would this be possible? I suspect it would be easy to add a module that allowed me search for threads on Linux only (maybe its already here?) but you rarely see a search tool that can search for multiple categories.

Suggestion.

I think the site is great by the way, there are just a few too many topics.

Oh by the way I know I could work my way down the forum tree and look at topics in the :
DaniWeb > Web Development > Databases > MySQL
forum. but there are loads of areas at daniweb that interest me, but not programming or IE exploits and in most cases viruses and spyware do not do it for me.

I know the site is not designed just for me - My suggestion has merits, daniweb would be able to offer mre help to users if people with the knowledge/experience/tips could find their posts easier.

SE(dave)

First of all, thank you for your suggestion. I would have answered you much sooner, but unfortunately the flu got a hold of me before you did First of all, I just want to point out that the whole idea behind DaniWeb is to be an I.T. community that encompasses everything I.T. The idea is that you may know a lot about a couple of topics, and be able to help out with some expert advice, and then easily transition to learn new things in a forum you don't know much about, while still feeling comfortable in the "new territory" because it is the same community and same group of people.

Now, second of all ... do me a favor Visit the thread listings page of a forum of your choice. Near the top right of the table of threads, there should be a link that says to Search this Forum. Click it and a DHTML dropdown box will appear to search the current forum. It automatically encompasses subforums ... so for example, you can search all of "Web Dev" at once.

Alternatively, you can click the Advanced Search link, and search your choice of all of our available forums. There is also an option to save search preferences, so you can preset the forums you want to see. I think this is one of the features you were asking about?

Something else that you can do here is select your choice of forums, and then use the drop down menu available under the Search Options to find all threads with at most zero replies (for unanswered threads) or all threads from the last day, last week, etc. It is also possible to reach this Advanced Search page by clicking on the word "Search" in the purple navigation bar on any page within DaniWeb.