New Threads, Editing Posts & Search Facility

I have several queries ...

1) Why when I start a new thread (as the Hints & Tips and this one) I cannot change the font or alter the font colour or size?

2) Why when I edit a posting I then don't have access to the facilities mentioned in 1) above when I had them just adding to the thread?

3) I find the search facility quite awkward ... and it doesn't appear you can be in a forum and search that forum from within as in the past.

 

Related: I think the search will only search for a phrase - so if you search on two or more words they have to appear just like that in title or post. Punctuation can throw it off too.

Easier to use Google (assuming it has indexed the page). Put

site:gardenerscorner.co.uk xxx yyy

into the Google search box (where XXX and YYY are the words you want to search on). Google will just search the GC site with that "site:" prefix.

 

I'm finding that even doing it thru google i'm getting the error message.

google shows the date of the last post so i've been going back into the relevant part of the forum & just paging back to that date, then I can access the old thread.