1) Next thing is ??? can the search options shown on
http://forums.b2evolution.net/feature-request-sorting-for-forum-search-function#c110898
be on the widget page as things are getting spread out and difficult to find.

2) Where can I find the 'Search Options' mentioned in https://b2evolution.net/man/search-form-widget

1) You suppose right. There are pretty hard performance considerations to be taken into account here.
2) I think it is possible if you point to an aggregate collection.
1) You should have numbered this "3)"... No because one controls the search form (which can be on several different pages) and the other controls the results page which exists in only one place (disp=search)
2) As the man page said "NOTE: this option is removed in version 6+ because the new search implementation automatically ranks better matches to display above poorer matches.". (I edited the page now)

Thanks all sounds sensible so will consider your replies in detail later :)

because one controls the search form (which can be on several different pages) and the other controls the results page which exists in only one place (disp=search)

Maybe there could be text with a link on the search form to the second navigate to the results page, the later being the more difficult to find.

On the general the search issue I have added the option to my search 'post' which is on my home page at http://calstock.org.uk (the funny icon to the right (which is supposed to be an elf sitting on a mushroom with snail and rabbit support)

I am wondering where the function is that restricts the search to the current collection, unlike when I list my 'user' post, they seem to be from all collections.

I don't see a keyword table in the database so is the search live as if so I'm imagining the search function must target a specific blog's items and if so I'd like to try and change that then work on getting the sentence containing the keyword searched for.