The IconExperience Search is a tool to search for icons in the V-Collections.

You can use an online version of the search tool to get a feel for the quality and comprehensiveness of the V-Collections. The icons shown online are copy-protected with a watermark.

If you purchase our icon collections, you will receive a special version of the search engine that runs in a Web browser on your computer (no installation or Internet connection required). You can access purchased icons with the search tool and save them to your local file system.

The IconExperience Search is an HTML-based application that uses JavaScript to run dynamically. All you need is a modern browser, such as Firefox, Safari or Windows Internet Explorer®. No plug-ins required!

Search results, including 24x24-pixel preview icons, appear immediately as you type in the search field. You do not even have to press the Enter key.

All of our icons are assigned multiple keywords. When you search by keyword, the search tool will display a list of icons associated with the words you enter. This makes it easy to find icons when you do not know their names.

The keyword search will look for any of the words you enter. So if a keyword consists of more than one word, e.g. data table, the search tool will find matches on single parts. Spaces and hyphens will be ignored.

Only 50 keyword results are shown at a time. (The local version of the search tool displays 100.). If you want to see all results, click “Show all results” at the top of the search tool. Beware that displaying all results can slow the search process down. This is especially likely in browsers with slow JavaScript, such as Windows Internet Explorer®

When you search by name, you simply enter the file name of the icon you are looking for. This is useful if you already know the name and want to view all sizes of the icon quickly.

To view an icon in all seven sizes, click the preview image in the search results. The particular icon will then appear on the right-hand side of the search tool.

A special version of the search tool you see and use on our Web site will be included with your purchased V-Collections. This version, which will run locally on your computer, is called the "Local Icon Search".

The search tool will recognize which collections you bought and only show the icons of those collections in the results.

Go into the main folder that comes with your purchase and double-click the search.html file. The file will then be opened with your default browser.

You can also right-click on the search.html file, select “Open with” and choose a browser of your choice.

If no browser opens when you double-click the search.html file, you can launch a browser manually and open the file through the main menu.

Right-click (Mac users control-click) on an image to save it to your file system.

Internet Explorer® can be very restrictive when running local Web sites with JavaScript on your computer.

• Internet Explorer® might ask you to open a new browser window when running local Web sites.
• Internet Explorer® might warn you of a potential risk of running local JavaScript (Active-X components) on your computer.

Keep in mind that running local Web sites is much safer than installing a program (see Local Search Security). Do not be confused by Internet Explorers obscure security warnings.

Alternatives to Internet Explorer® include Firefox®, Safari™ and Opera™. You will not be prompted with security warnings by these browsers and the IconExperience Search will work normally when you start it. Also, the search runs faster in these browsers because of better JavaScript performance.

Running the IconExperience Search on your computer is very secure:

• No installation required. All files needed for the search are inside the folder structure that comes with your purchase. No changes are made to your computer's file structure or registry.
• The IconExperience Icon Search is an HTML site running JavaScript. These sites are restricted in what they can do on your machine; for example, they cannot read or write any files.
• The IconExperience Search is cross-browser compatible and does not use any special Microsoft Active-X components.
• The JavaScript source used by the search can be readily viewed by anyone.

The IconExperience Local Search will only show the icons of the collections in the v_collections folder. When you launch the local search, the start page shows you which collections are found.

If you have purchased the whole collections bundle, all collections are found and the search shows all icons.

If you have purchased only one collection, the search will only show the icons of the collection you purchased.

If you have purchased more than one collection - but not the whole bundle - you can copy the folders of the different collections into one single v_collections folder. When you then reload the search, it will recognize all icons of the collections you copied to the v_collections folder.

The local search that comes with your purchase can be run from a shared file or Web server in your company so that your co-workers can access it without having the icons or search tool on their computers.

We have put great effort into making the IconExperience Search run in as many browsers as possible. The search has been tested in new versions of Firefox®, Safari™, Opera™ and Windows Internet Explorer®. It will also likely run in older versions of these browsers, such as IE 5.5 and 6.0, and in other browsers supporting JavaScript.

Your browser must have JavaScript enabled. If JavaScript is not enabled you will be notified and receive instructions on how to enable JavaScript on the search page.