Welcome to Style Live . . .

Style Live includes profiles and reviews of more than 1,500 restaurants, clubs, theaters, museums and other cultural attractions around the city. Want to find the best place to order Chinese dim sum without going downtown? Or to discover the best Latin dance club in Adams-Morgan? Or to hear about an arts festival that your whole family will find entertaining? Style Live will keep you abreast of what’s happening, from the latest shows at the Kennedy Center to community caroling in your neighborhood.

Creating Style Live has been greatly helped by a partnership that we have forged with an Internet publishing company called CitySearch, which has pioneered the development of online city guides in eight other U.S. cities, as well as in Canada and Australia. Thanks to this partnership, Style Live is powered by an innovative database technology that allows users to retrieve information easily on any entertainment venue or event that has been covered by our editorial staff. Users not only can search the database for the best places to go and things to do given their personal interests, but they can also obtain all the practical information they need about location, showtime, price, transportation and parking. Here, in question and answer form, is how the new Style Live section works:

How should I use the new navigational bars that appear across the top of both the Style Live front and each of the subsection fronts?

From the moment you enter the Style Live section, you will notice a change in the global navigation system at the top of the page. Instead of the pull-down menu that has long been used on other parts of washingtonpost.com, you will find a navigation bar across the top of the Style Live front with buttons representing the four biggest content areas of the site: News, Style, Sports and Classifieds. While you are in the Style Live section, the Style button on the global navigation bar will light up. Should you wish to move to one of the other major areas of the site, simply click on one of the other navigation bar buttons and it will take you quickly there. If you are in one of the Style Live subsection fronts, you will see a second global navigation bar directly underneath the first one. This second bar will spell out each subsection of Style Live. If you wish to move quickly from one subsection to another (from Movies to Restaurants, for example) without going back to the Style Live front, just click on the Restaurants button on the navigation bar and you will be taken there. If you wish to return to the Style Live front, just click on the Style button on the top navigation bar.

Over the next few months, you will see the navigation bars in Style Live introduced throughout the rest of washingtonpost.com.

How do I search for the best places to go and things to do using the new Style Live features?

Suppose you want to find out which movies are playing locally and when and where they are playing. From the opening screen of Style Live, click on the Movies & Videos button on the left-hand side of the page. You will be brought to our Movies & Video subsection, where you will find not only our top movie features of the day, but also a series of hyperlinked keywords down the left-hand side. Click on the keyword "Now Showing," for instance, and you will kick off a search of all movies currently playing in the Washington area. When a search return page appears, simply click on the listing that you are interested in, and you will be provided with theater and showtime information for that movie, as well as a Washington Post review of the movie.

In many cases you may be searching for an entertainment location such as a restaurant or nightclub rather than an event such as a movie or concert. The process is essentially the same. Say you would like to try a new Italian restaurant tonight. If you click the Restaurants & Food button to the left of the Style Live front, you will come to our Restaurants & Food subsection. In the keywords to the left of that page, you will find "Italian." The search return that you will trigger by clicking on that keyword will bring up an alphabetical listing of all Italian restaurants that have either been profiled by us editorially or that have purchased an advertiser Web site on our service, or both. This information will be followed by basic line listings (name, address and phone number only) for all other businesses in our yellow pages directory that relate to the keyword searched.

If you see this icon (for Washington Post) beside the name, you will get an editorial profile or review of the restaurant by clicking on that icon. If you see this icon (for Yellow Pages) beside the name, you will access a promotional Web site paid for by the restaurant.

Is there any way to do a more refined search of what I am looking for?
For an even more detailed search, scroll down to the bottom of the subsection front for the entertainment category that you have selected, where you will find a series of advanced search boxes. Each of these boxes includes a pull-down menu with a series of choices that allow you to fine-tune your search. Just click your mouse on any of the choices displayed (you can click on several choices within the same pull-down menu) and you will limit the search to the criteria you select. In the restaurant subsection, for instance, you can indicate what kind of cuisine you want, the price range you prefer and the neighborhood(s) you are interested in. The technology employed will even generate a map of the spot you are looking for and allow you to search for other activities that may interest you nearby. If you plan to catch a movie, for instance, and then would like to find a moderately priced Italian restaurant within a half-mile of the theater, our software will identify for you what options are available.

How do I find events taking place in a particular entertainment category?
Some of the keywords on subsection fronts, such as "Now Showing" will take you directly to a list of entertainment events, such as movies currently playing. Other keywords, such as "Jazz" or "Art Museums," will trigger a search that first lists locations associated with that category at the top of the page. If the database also includes information on events related to that keyword, the list of events will appear in chronological order (by the date the event ends, not begins) below the location listings.

In addition, on nearly all of the subsection fronts, in the box labeled Inside Out in the upper-right corner, you will find convenient links to specialized calendars of events that relate to the content of that subsection. From the Inside Out box in the Theater & Dance subsection, for instance, you can call up a calendar of all shows now playing.

How do I use the free-form search box that appears on both the Style Live front and each of the subsection fronts?
In addition to the keyword searches that can be conducted from the Movies, Restaurants and other subsection fronts, users can also search our online Yellow Pages, using the WP Yellow Pages search box that appears on both the Style Live front and each of the individual entertainment subsection fronts. The WP Yellow Pages not only provide a comprehensive business directory for the greater Washington area, but also include hundreds of special advertiser Web sites for local retailers, including restaurants, clubs and other entertainment-oriented establishments.

To use the WP Yellow Pages search feature, just go to the box that asks, "What are you looking for?" and type in the name of the restaurant you want to visit or even the title of the movie you’d like to see. If you are uncertain of exactly what you want or where you want to go, you can simply type in what kind of food you are thinking about, or the sort of club you have in mind (pop, jazz, blues), for instance. Then select from the pull-down menu that appears immediately below that space the geographic area that you prefer and click the "Search Now" button. Unlike the keyword searches described above, search returns using the WP Yellow Pages search box lists advertisers whose web sites contain the most pages first, followed by businesses and organizations that we have profiled editorially. These enhanced listings will be followed by basic line listings for businesses that have neither been profiled nor have advertiser web sites.

How up-to-date and accurate should I expect the information in the WP Yellow Pages to be?
The more than 200,000 listings in our directory have been provided to us by a company called American Business Information. Our goal is to be the most comprehensive, up-to-date yellow pages for the greater Washington area. Because of the vastness of the database, we have not been able to verify the accuracy of all the listings ourselves. We hope that you will help us improve the reliability of both the directory and our search engine. If you find any information that is outdated, or you don’t find a listing for a particular business, or your search request returns listings that do not seem to fit your query, please e-mail us using the convenient form on the front of the WP Yellow Pages.

What other programming features will I find in Style Live?
Along with the new navigational approach and search capabilities of Style Live, the new section includes a number of programming features that we believe you will appreciate. One is an improved crossword puzzle. Movie lovers will also find our coverage of the film world greatly enhanced as a result of our partnership with Hollywood Online, the leading movie site on the Web.

In the coming months, we also expect to be adding several new sections to Style Live. The coverage will include the Great Outdoors, Weekend Getaways and a Visitor's Guide, plus a greatly expanded Books & Reading section. We also will be introducing a feature that allows you to tell us whom your favorite performers are and what kinds of entertainment events you most enjoy. Then, we can e-mail you when a performer or event that fits your bill is coming to town.

All this is prompted by our commitment to making washingtonpost.com the place to go on the Web to know Washington Inside Out. So e-mail us at events@washingtonpost.com and let us know where to find that great neighborhood restaurant or special music spot or perfect little gallery or museum, and help us make Style Live the true insider's guide to going out in Washington.

Christopher Ma
Executive Producer