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--- The Help Page ---
- How to Search -
Let us start on the Home Page.
To see all vehicles in a category (cars,
4wds, utes, vans, trucks or motorcycles) in a certain region
(Central Coast, Newcastle, Hunter)
- Roll the mouse over the category name below a graphic.
- A menu will open up.
- Select a region.
- Click that region.
You will be shown a brief description of
all the vehicles in that category from that region. This will
go to another page. Let us call this new page the search
page.
Clicking
a thumbnail will show:
- A full description of that particular vehicle.
- Full details of the dealer who put that vehicle on cars4us.
The full description includes up to four
thumbnails displayed around the main photo. There may be no
thumbnails and no main photo if the dealer did not load any
photos. Clicking a thumbnail will replace the main photo with
a full sized photo of the thumbnail. You will find that four
photos are enough.
At
the top of the search page will be two rows of input elements
of three types:
- Select elements (drop down boxes, select buttons).
- A group of three radio buttons for sorting returned results.
- A submit button marked Find Them.
When you are through looking at the details
of a vehicle, use the select elements to modify search criteria.
These are the search criteria:
- A state.
- A region in that state.
- A category of vehicle - car, 4wd,ute, etc.
- A make of vehicle, e.g. a Ford.
- A model of that make, e.g a Laser.
- The maximum kilometers you want on the odometer.
- The low price cut-off.
- The high-price cut-off.
- The maximum age of the vehicle in years.
The top row of select elements do not have
default values. You will have to make a deliberate selection.
But you can choose Any if you want to see vehicles
from any state, which will automatically select Any
in the Region select field. Otherwise you can select
a state and choose to see vehicles from any region in that
state. Or, of course, you can select a specific region and
state.
Selecting a category is compulsory. There
is no Any for categories. This is because very few
people are in the market for a Car and a Truck, or a 4WD and
a Bike, or a Van, a Truck and a Bike or any other combination
of vehicle categories.
Under Make you can select a specific
make or Any. Selecting Any will auto select
Any in the models select field. The makes and models
are loaded from the database. Only makes and models actually
in the database are shown in the makes and models select elements.
You can change how the results are sorted
by selecting a different radio button. The three sort criteria
are:
The default selection is price. You can
choose a new sort criterium at any stage. Click Find Them
after choosing a new sort criterium and the vehicles will
be sorted according to your newly chosen sort criterium.
The models
shown in the model select fields are models actually in the
database. You can select a specific model or select Any.
It may be that in the early days there are
no vehicles of a particular category in the database. In that
case None is displayed in the makes select field. Obviously,
it would then be pointless to search in that category.
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The Second Row -
Here we find things like price, age (in years)
and distance traveled. The defaults for these are Any.
Obviously, you can leave the defaults on or make your own
choice.
-
General -
You will not have to leave the search
page for any of your searches. After looking at the details
of a specific vehicle just click Find Them to get back
to the list of vehicles from which you made the selection
of the vehicle to have a closer look at. You can also modify
the search criteria before clicking Find Them to see
a different list of vehicles returned.
Note that you can exactly duplicate the quick
searches of the home page using the select fields.
Just select a state, region and a category and then select
Any as the make. Leave the default values in
the second row of select elements.
Happy hunting.
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