SWISH-E -- Web Site Search Utility
A convenient method to allow clients to retrieve information from a
web site is by building an index of the web pages and providing search
capability. This may seem like a daunting task, but with a few tools
this task becomes very easy.
Normally web indexing and searching requires a complex, hard to use
and install WAIS-based solution, however a small yet powerful program
SWISH-E,
(which is based on SWISH written by Kevin Hughes), can be used to
fulfill your web indexing and searching needs.
Installation
To install SWISH-E on your Virtual Server do the following:
- Telnet or SSH
to your Virtual Server.
- At a command prompt type:
% cd (and hit return - this will
put you in your home directory)
- Then untar the swish-e tar file we have prepared for you, type:
% tar -xvf /usr/local/contrib/swish-e.tar
Create a SWISH-E index of your site
- Change your current working directory to your swish directory,
type:
% cd ~/usr/local/swish-e
- Create a SWISH-E configuration file
for your Virtual Server. Save this file under the name of
"website.conf" (or some other name of your liking) and then
store this file in your ~/usr/local/swish-e directory. You
will find a default configuration file in the ~/usr/local/swish-e
directory, "swish.conf", which you can use as a template (just
make sure you change all occurrences of LOGIN_NAME to match
the login name of your Virtual Server).
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PLEASE NOTE:
You should be very familiar with the
FileRules
section of the configuration file. By default, SWISH-E
will not index files in directories containing a ".htaccess" file. If
you have a directory that contains a ".htaccess" file, and would like
it indexed- comment out that FileRules
line by placing a "#" as the first character in the line.
|
- Run SWISH-E. Type:
% cd ~/usr/local/swish-e
% ./swish-e -c CONFIG_FILE
Where CONFIG_FILE is the name of your SWISH-E configuration file
you created in the previous step.
After you run the SWISH-E executable, a SWISH-E index
file will be generated. The name of the SWISH-E index file
is that which you specified as the value for the
IndexFile variable
in the SWISH-E configuration file.
HTML Source for the Search Form
The HTML source below represents a sample
search form. This form can be
customized for your Virtual Server by simply changing the occurrence
of SWISH_INDEX_FILE to the name of the swish-e
index which you specified as the value for the
IndexFile variable
in the SWISH-E configuration file.
<html>
<head>
<title>Search Swish Index</title>
</head>
<body>
<h1>Search Swish Index</h1>
<form method="GET" action="/cgi-bin/library/searchindex/query.pl">
<!-- want to mimic "swish -f swishindex -w keywords -m maxresults" -->
<input type="hidden" name="swishindex"
value="/usr/local/swish-e/SWISH_INDEX_FILE">
<b>Search for the following keywords:</b><br>
<input name="keywords" size=40 maxlength=512>
<p>
    <input type=radio name=detail value=yes CHECKED>
<b>Verbose report</b>
    <input type=radio name=detail value=no>
<b>Simple report</b>
<p>
<b>Maximum number of results:</b><br>
<input name="maxresults" size=5 value=40 maxlength=64>
<p>
<input type="submit" value="Search"> <input type="reset" value="Reset">
<p>
__________________________________________<p>
search example 1: john and doe or jane<br>
search example 2: john and (doe or jane)<br>
search example 3: not (john or jane) and doe<br>
search example 4: j* and doe<br>
<p>
</form>
</body>
</html>
You may hide the "maxresults" edit field by simply using a
"type=hidden" argument with the input tag.
If you are unfamiliar with the FORM HTML element, or would like to
learn more about forms, see
Mosaic for X version 2.0 Fill-Out Form Support.
Install the Search CGI
To install the search form on your Virtual Server you will need to
do the following:
- Download the Search Form
You will need to download the Search
Form HTML source and store it somewhere in your
"usr/local/etc/httpd/htdocs" directory structure. Feel free to customize
the form, add graphics, etc. But be sure that the variable name
for each input field is not altered.
- Untar the Simple Search CGI source code
The CGI source code for the search form was installed when you
created your SWISH-E index file. To extract only the
CGI scripts from the swish-e tar archive, perform the following
commands:
-
Telnet or SSH to your Virtual Server.
- change directories to your home directory
(type "cd" and hit return)
- type "
tar -xvf /usr/local/contrib/swish-e.tar [path]"
Where the value of "[path]" is "usr/local/etc/httpd/cgi-bin/library".
This will only install the query.pl and util.pl file into your
"www/cgi-bin/library/searchindex" directory.
- Customize the Appearance of the Search CGI
Two subroutines in the util.pl
file are used to print out header and footer information. These
functions are print_header_info and
print_footer_info. Feel free to modify these functions
such that the CGI outputs pages that are in synch with the motifs
of the rest of your site.
Documentation
For more information and documentation see:
