Basic search documentation

2 files changed, 25 insertions, 0 deletions

diff --git a/docs/source/user/index.rst b/docs/source/user/index.rst
index 3b0a0f4..0eb3918 100644
--- a/docs/source/user/index.rst
+++ b/docs/source/user/index.rst
@@ -11,5 +11,6 @@ Documentation that is useful for everybody.
    getting_started_command_line
    moving_data_between_collections
    settings
+   search
 
    derivatives
diff --git a/docs/source/user/search.rst b/docs/source/user/search.rst
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..41746a3
--- /dev/null
+++ b/docs/source/user/search.rst
@@ -0,0 +1,24 @@
+***************
+ Search syntax
+***************
+
+Searches in lesana use the human readable query string format defined by
+xapian.
+
+The simplest search is just a list of terms: e.g. searching for
+``thing object`` will find entries where either ``thing`` or ``object``
+is present in one of the fields with ``free`` indexing.
+
+It is also possible to specify that a term must be in one specific
+field: the syntax for this is the name of the field follwed by ``:`` and
+the term, e.g. ``name:object`` will search for entries with the term
+``object`` in the ``name`` field.
+
+Search queries can of course include the usual logical operators
+``AND``, ``OR`` and ``NOT``.
+
+More modifiers are available; see the `Query Parser`_ documentation from
+xapian for details.
+
+.. _`Query Parser`: https://getting-started-with-xapian.readthedocs.io/en/latest/concepts/search/queryparser.html
+