Note: This documentation is for an old version of Webinator. The latest documentaion is here.

Customizing the Search

You may make common changes to Webinator's search appearance by using Search Settings from the administrative interface main menu. But you are not limited to those features. You may change any and all aspects of the search program's appearance and behavior by modifying the supplied search script or writing an altogether new one.

For details on programming with Texis Web Script (Vortex), see the manual at the Thunderstone web site, http://www.thunderstone.com.

The following describes some important points about the internals of the default search script that comes with Webinator. The search script is fairly heavily commented to aid in finding your way around within it.

The init function is called from every entry point. It is a good place to place settings that should always or most times apply. It understands the old style specification of database by the db variable as well as the new method of extracting the database name from the profile named by the pr variable.

The top function displays the common HTML for the beginning of every page generated by the script. This does not include the search form. It is where you would place styles and navigation menus.

The bottom function is the complement to the top function. It displays the common HTML footer for the end of every page.

The showform function displays the search form with all current settings indicated.

The qpar and fpar functions process the user's form submission and apply appropriate search parameter settings.

The credit function displays the Thunderstone credit on the search results. This is required for free users but may be changed or emptied for paid users.

The result function is called for each matching record to display. It then calls the configured result* function to generate the desired output style.

The mlt function is called to setup the search when the end user selects ``Find Similar'' (aka More Like This).

The similar function may be called directly to find pages within the database that are similar to the content of the URL specified. It has the same concept of ``Find Similar'' but will work on any specified URL, not just those displayed as the result of a search. It would be invoked something like this on any HTML page.

<a href="/cgi-bin/texis/webinator/search/similar.html?