Including Stop Words in Search

Including Stop Words in Search

Flare has a hard-coded stop words list that works behind the scenes to filter out common structure-class words (i.e., function words) from search operations. This means the Flare search engine excludes words (e.g., "an," "for," "of," and "the") by default. If you want the search engine to search for queries with these words, you can include the stop words list in search.

List of Stop Words—English

Below is the list of hard-coded English stop words that the Flare search engine excludes from search by default. If you want to create a custom stop words list, you can create one on your local computer using Language Skins as described below.

a

about

after

against

all

also

among

an

and

are

as

at

be

became

because

been

between

but

by

can

come

do

during

each

early

for

found

from

had

has

have

he

her

his

however

in

include

into

is

it

its

late

later

made

many

may

me

med

more

most

near

no

non

not

of

on

only

or

other

over

several

she

some

such

than

that

the

their

then

there

these

they

this

through

to

under

until

use

was

we

were

when

where

which

who

with

you

your

Note The stop words list applies to English projects only. If you wish to create a custom stop words list for another language, use the instructions below to create a custom list of stop words.

Note For best results, it is recommended that you use the default setting (i.e., stop words are automatically excluded from search). This typically returns the most relevant search results.

Note "If" and "will" are also recognized as stop words when using Elasticsearch as your search engine.

How to Include the Stop Words List in Search

By default, the words on the stop words list are excluded from search. To include them, complete the following steps.

  1. In the Project Organizer, open the target.
  2. In the Target Editor, click the Search tab.
  3. In the Search Results section, place a check mark in the Include stop-words in search box.
  4. Click Save the active file. to save your work.

Creating a Custom Stop Words List

In Flare, the stop words list is hard-coded. However, you can create your own stop words list on your local computer using language skins. See Language Skins.

Note Stop words are not customizable in HTML5 outputs.

How to Create a Local Copy of the Stop Words List

These instructions show you how to create a stop words list for an English language skin. You can also use these instructions to create a custom stop word list for other languages.

  1. Open a Flare project.
  2. Do one of the following, depending on the part of the user interface you are using:

    • Ribbon Select Project > New > Advanced > Add Language Skin.

    • Right-Click In the Project Organizer, right-click on the Advanced folder and from the context menu select Add Language Skin.

    The Add File dialog opens.

  3. In the File Type field at the top, make sure Language Skin is selected.
  4. (Optional) If you want to place the file into a subfolder previously created in the Content Explorer or Project Organizer, in the Folder field click The browse ellipsis button opens to more options. and select the subfolder. Otherwise, keep the default location. See Creating Subfolders.
  5. From the Language drop-down, select the language you want to use for the language skin.
  6. In the File Name field, type a new name for the language skin.
  7. (Optional) If you want to apply condition tags to the file, expand the Attributes section at the bottom of the dialog. Next to the Condition Tags field, click The browse ellipsis button opens to more options. and select the conditions you want to apply. Click OK. See Applying Conditions to Content.
  8. (Optional) If you want to apply file tags, expand the Attributes section at the bottom of the dialog. Next to the File Tags field, click The browse ellipsis button opens to more options. and select the file tags you want to apply. Click OK. See Associating Tags With Files.

  9. Click Add. The language skin is added to the Advanced folder in the Project Organizer. The Language Skin Editor opens to the right, with the new language skin shown. Depending on the language you selected when creating the language skin, the skin may include default translations for some UI text strings.

    This creates a copy of the project language skin file and places it in your Project's Advanced folder (e.g., C:\Users\[username]\Documents\My Projects\[project name]\Project\Advanced). The language skin file name uses the *.fllng file name extension (e.g., af.fllng, en.fllng, es.fllng).

  10. Close the Language Skin Editor.

How to Modify the Stop Words List

  1. Open the Project Organizer.
  2. Double-click the Advanced folder.
  3. Right-click the language skin file, then select Open with > Internal Text Editor. See Internal Text Editor.
  4. In the text editor, enclose your list of stop words in the <StopWords> </StopWords> tag. All tags are case sensitive and all stop words must be typed in lowercase.

  5. Enclose each stop word in the <Word></Word> tag.

  6. Click Save the active file. to save your work.

Note You can also modify the stop words list using a text editor on your computer, such as Notepad.

How to Build the Target and Test the Custom Stop Words List

  1. Open the target in your Flare project.
  2. Select the Language tab, and choose the appropriate language.
  3. Build the target.
  4. Perform searches in the output to test if stop words are being found.