Searching Records

Ok, I have an application which has many input forms. Many different users want to search by many different things. That being said, I was wondering what everyone thought would be the best way to handle this: option 1: at the bottom of every form, beside the submit and reset button I could add another button called search which would search the records checking criteria for any form field containing a value. This would allow users to search whatever they wanted, etc... option 2: create a search page whereby I search a set number of fields using LIKE. The problem I see with this is that I may wind up including all the fields that a user can populate on. option 3: something else? Discuss away! BTW, T Weegs votes for 2. Mike

Searching is always difficult to balance - giving users the right options in the right way is something of a skill. More and more, we're doing something like giving people a google like option, with filtering. In other words, you give them an open text box, but then let the filter those results based on the form criteria. Like this: http://wateroutreach.cfmxtest.uwex.edu/education/search.cfm (Be kind this is a site still in test.) > option 3: something else? >