*************************************************************************
THIS IS A PLAIN TEXT VERSION OF THE ONLINE DOCUMENTATION AVAILABLE AT:
http://www.santry.com/downloads/ASPSearch/UserGuide.htm
*************************************************************************
Quick Start Instructions
Open the Global.asa file and change two Application variables to match your server
Application("AppRoot") = change this to point to your application's physical directory.
Application("DSN") = Do nothing, unless you do not want to use the default Access database
location. Also, change this if you decide to upsize the database to SQL Server
and want to create a DSN on your machine.
### IMPORTANT NOTICE !!!! #####
This database is an Access 2000 database, you cannot open it with Access 97
or you will receive and error!!!!
#### END NOTICE ######
Table of Contents
User Guide For ASP Search! 3
Features provided by ASP Search ver. 1.5b: 3
Features to be added in future versions: 3
Installation Instructions: 4
Using ASPSearch with Microsoft FrontPage ***/2000. 4
Add the ODBC Data source. 5
Copy files to the Web.. 6
Create HTML Templates & Move to Templates Folder.. 6
ASPSearch Extended Tags.. 7
Form Placement Tags & Type. 7
Set Permissions on the Management, Data source & Templates Folders.. 8
Operating Instructions: 9
Configuring ASPSearch For Your System... 9
The Config.ini File. 9
The Management Interface. 9
Adding Content to the Database. 10
Adding Categories. 11
Modifying Records in the Database. 12
Setting Application Options. 13
The Finished Engine. 15
Features Still Pending & Other Notes.. 15
Access levels: 15
ASPSearch!
Your ready-made personal directory for your ASP driven Web site!
User Guide For ASP Search!
Thanks for trying out ASP Search Version 1.5b, by Patrick J. Santry, MCSD, MCT, MCP+SB, MCP, Patrick@Santry.com
In all my years of developing Web applications, search engines are probably the thing I have most of my experience in. I've created catalogs, keyword search engines, search engines that queried on everything including the weather. I put together this basic search engine for you to integrate into your Web site and provide your users with some functionality and hopefully inspire them to come back to your site. This engine can also provide a means for you to store and retrieve information for your intranet or anything else you can envision. This engine is provided totally free for you to use, all I ask is that you keep my copyright notice in the source code and let people know where you got the engine from. Obviously I can't provide free support for the application (I have to feed my wife and kids), if you need customization or installation support, drop me a note and I'll cut you a deal. Most of the problems I'm told about are usually addressed in future versions anyway. You just have to be patient and wait for the fixes to get done.
Features provided by ASP Search ver. 1.5b:
Full text searching.
New site designation.
Applying keywords to sites.
Simple and new Power Search capabilities for categorical searching.
Management of sites and articles.
User addition interface.
Hit logging and redirection.
Easily integrated into your site's look!
Features to be added in future versions:
Affiliate program management and integration.
Pass search criteria to other search engines.
Active channel generation of new content, use push technology!
Membership tracking.
DHTML based WYSIWYG editing environment for editing articles (IE4 and above only).
COM object integration option for enhanced performance and features.
Email notification of events.
Multiple site hosting capabilities and management.
Shopping cart and product management add-in!
Be sure to email me at: Patrick@Santry.com and have your requests added to the wish list.
Installation Instructions:
Using ASPSearch with Microsoft FrontPage ***/2000
ASPSearch comes ready to implement as a FrontPage Web template. In order to function as a Web template create a subdirectory of off of your FrontPage templates directory called "ASPSearch.tem", the FrontPage templates directory is located at :\Microsoft Office\Templates\1033\Webs\ extract the contents of the ASPSearch.zip file into the newly created ASPSearch.tem directory.
If you cannot find the templates directory refer to your documentation on the location of the directory. You could also conduct a search for any folders with the "normal.tem", this is the default template directory for FrontPage.
Once you have the template file installed, start FrontPage and then from the file menu select New | Web.. this should bring up a dialog box as in figure 1.0 with ASPSearch as a Web site option.
Figure 1.0 - Installation of ASPSearch via FrontPage 2000
Then in the options just provide a name for your FrontPage Web ASPSearch engine, and click on OK. FrontPage will then create the directories on the Web server and load the proper files needed to run ASPSearch. It will also load tasks in the tasks view for your information on getting ASPSearch up and running.
Add the ODBC Data source
By default you do not need to create a DSN on the target Web server. The application will look in the /Datasource/ folder for the Access database that is the back-end for the application. You can however opt to upgrade to SQL Server or place your database outside of the Web root for greater security (refer to the permissions section for security).
Create a Web Application Folder
Your application is driven and defined by variables in the global.asa file. Because of the global.asa playing such a major role in defining application variables you must have your application root set up as an IIS application and not a physical folder that is branched of your Web root.
All Web applications that use the global.asa file should have the proper options set up in IIS. You'll notice in figure 1.1 which is a display of the directory structure of the default Web on an IIS machine. Some directories are displayed with a folder next to it and others have a package next to it that designates the application status. ASPSearch must have this designation in order to work.
Figure 1.1 - IIS Applications should have a package icon next to them designating it as an application. If ASPSearch does not have this designation it will not work.
If you are using a tool such as FrontPage ***+ or Visual InterDev, you can create a new Web or project in the development environment. Once this is created unzip the files in the distribution of ASPSearch and drag and drop from the place you unzip the files to the root of the new Web or project recently created in your development environment. This method should place all the needed IIS permissions on you project to work.
After your project is setup you should check the applications properties in Internet Information Server. Go to IIS and right click on the Web project and select properties.
Figure 1.2 - IIS5 Dialog Box displaying options for the ASPSearch application.
The absolute minimum permissions (see figure 1.2) for your Web is execute permissions must have at Scripts, and the directories need to have read permissions.
Copy files to the Web
Create HTML Templates & Move to Templates Folder
Adding ASPSearch into the look of your site is extremely easy to do. ASPSearch was designed for the non-programmer and making it easy for you to implement a search engine into a HTML template document.
Each asp page of the application has a corresponding htm file located in the /Templates/ folder that it uses as it's template. Included are sample templates in the templates directory for your reference.
Figure 1.3 - Place ASPSearch Extended Tags to define the placement of your engine & form in your template document.
ASPSearch Extended Tags
<#SEARCH#>
Designates where the search results will be placed in the document.
Applies To:
search.htm
<#CONTENT#>
Designates where article content will be placed in the case of internal links.
Applies To:
details.htm
<#ADDFORM#>
Designates where the add url form will be placed in the document.
Applies To:
addurl.htm
Form Placement Tags & Type
The following tags are applicable to all templates.
<#POWER#>
This form is the what allows you to search on various criteria: all words; any of the words; exact phrase; display how records; and category.
<#QUICK#>
This places the simple search form that is located in the simple.inc file. If you wish to change the look of your search form open the simple.inc file and modify.
<#ADVANCED#>
This is suggested to be used for internal purposes. It allows you to search based on all criteria in the database.
You can add search forms to any other pages outside of the Web by copying the form code from the inc files and then placing this into other documents throughout your Web.
Note: Do not change the names or remove any of the form fields or your search will not work. You can change the form field types; say you want to filter all results by a specific category, then replace the <#CATPICK#> tag in the power search form to . You could do this with any of the form fields in order to hard code criteria to pass to the engine.
Set Permissions on the Management, Data source & Templates Folders
In order to keep prying eyes away from your database and to protect the integrity of the management interface, you will need to apply the following permissions to these folders:
/Templates/ - Location of htm files for adding the look to your engine.
System Account: Full Access
/Manager/ - Interface for managing ASPSearch.
Site Administrators: Full Access
/Datasource/ - Location of the Access database and config.ini for system configuration options.
Site Administrators: Full Access
System Account: Full Access
IMPORTANT:
The management interface does have some level of intrinsic security in that you have to provide a login via a Web-based login. This is provided via the Members table of the database and setting the field MemberAccess to ADMIN. The default user name is Administrator and the password is ASPSearch. Please change the default login information after installation to ensure security of the system.
Note: Make sure you remove the everyone account from these folders & the IUSR_MACHINENAME account that IIS uses to access files on your machine.
In Internet Information Server make sure you disallow anonymous access to these folders. To further restrict the management interface you should restrict all access to this folder to just internal IP addresses in order to prevent any access from the outside Web.
Operating Instructions:
Configuring ASPSearch For Your System
The Config.ini File
This file must be configured properly for ASPSearch to work. This file must be located in the datasource folder off of the application root. When your application is started for the first time the global.asa file looks for this file and loads application specific variables from this in order to configure the system.
The following is a list of key names and their corresponding values:
Key Name
Description
APPROOT
This is the physical location of the ASPSearch application on the Web server.
DSNTYPE
This specifies if you wish to the default Access database, in this case ASPSearch will dynamically create a DSN for you to be used in the application. The default value is FILE, change it to OFF to disable this feature.
DSN
If you wish to upsize to SQL Server or relocate your database out of the datasource directory. After you change the DSNTYPE key to OFF then place your DSN string after this key in order to enable the new DSN.
After making changes to the config.ini file you will need to stop and restart the Web application in order for the new values to go into effect.
Note: Be sure that you do not remove any values from config.ini file. Also the key names are case sensitive be sure all keys are in uppercase letters.
The Management Interface
The management interface is where you'll spend your time approving sites for addition to your directory, adding content, modifying records, and running reports.
Figure 1.4 - The Primary Menu of the Management Interface
When you first access the management interface you'll see the various options available to you as an administrator of the ASPSearch Engine (fig1.4). In order to get content added to your site you'll need to add sites or provide an link to the addurl.asp page in the application's root in order to allow your users to add content to the site.
Adding Content to the Database
When you are in the add records screen as in figure 1.5, this is where you can add sites to be displayed in the search engine. There are a number of values that you can pass to the engine. These fields are: the name that will displayed as link text, the actual URL of the site, the description to be displayed to the user, keywords for meta data searching, and a category to place the document in.
Note: When ASPSearch is completed you will also be able to internal documents to the engine using a WYSIWYG editor. This will allow your engine to not only search URLs in the database, but also allow you to provide dynamic content that is generated from the database and applying your templates to the document.
Figure 1.5 Adding new records to the engine.
Adding Categories
There is a link provided on the record entry page and the record modification screen which will send you to the category addition and modification screen (fig1.6).
Figure 1.6 Adding new categories to the engine.
From here you can view all categories that are in the engine and the properties of them. The first column allows you to permanently delete a category when you select this checkbox and click on the "Delete Checked" button. The next column is the actual name and text that will be displayed when searching for records in a category. The third column is the whether or not the record is an internal document or external. Although this feature is still not implemented, this is what specifies whether or not this record is an article in the database used for dynamic content or whether this record is a URL that goes outside of your site. The last column is the public column, meaning if you use the power search form - will this category be displayed to the public and allows them to search on it.
Modifying Records in the Database
In the modification screen(fig1.7) you will be able to search for records in your database based on various criteria.
Figure 1.7 - Modifying records in the database.
If you wish to view any pending sites for addition to the public engine just conduct a search on all inactive sites. This will display those sites that awaiting the administrator's approval. There are other searches you can apply based on category, keyword(s), and options to narrow your keyword search.
Once you find the record(s) you want you can do a mass deletion by checking the boxes in the first column and clicking on the "Delete Checked" button. You can also change the status of the records here.
To edit the individual record, just click on the name of the site in the table. This will bring up the record modification screen as in figure 1.8.
Figure 1.8 - Modifying an individual record's properties.
From here you can view all the associated information for this particular site in the database and change any of the properties you wish.
Setting Application Options
In the application screen (fig1.9), you'll see various key names and their corresponding values. Be careful here, all values should be in caps in order for this to work properly. These values specify how certain features of your application will look and work.
Figure 1.9 - Setting the system settings for ASPSearch
The following table lists these values and describes them:
Key
Description
HITLOGGING
Not yet implemented.
SRCHLOGGING
When set to ON the application will log in the ACCESSLOG table all clicks from the search engine results. This allows you to track which keywords the user was search on and which link they ended up selecting.
DEFAULTPAGECOUNT
How many records at a time should ASPSearch display when no count is specified.
ALLOWADD
Not yet implemented.
DEFAULTACTIVE
Not yet implemented.
SHOWDATEADDED
When set to ON this specified whether or not to display the date the URL was added to the engine in the search results.
SHOWNEWDESIGNATION
This specifies whether or not you wish the "NEW" icon to be displayed after the link. Currently the new value is any site added within the last 5 days.
LINKTARGET
Place the html target of where you wish this link to go to once the user clicks on it. I.e: if you want it to open a new window then enter window, to open to the top then _top, etc…
The Finished Engine
After everything is configured and working properly you should have a highly functional directory search engine as in figure 2.0.
Figure 2.0 - The finished engine integrated into your site.
Features Still Pending & Other Notes
Access levels:
In order to administer the site you will need to open the database directly and modify the MEMBERS table. This is where all user information is stored for the application. More features to this application will be driven off of this table in future releases.
The following access levels are in effect for user entries:
ADMIN - Individual administering ASPSearch
USERS - Automatically added when a user to your site adds a url in the database. This record checks for the email address in order to avoid duplication. In future releases you will be able to run reports on the sites added and who added them.
Do you have a Web related resource? Add it to my Santry.com search engine for FREE! Just go to http://www.santry.com and click on the Add URL option at the top-right menu.
Need Web development? Contact Patrick@Santry.com, specializing in e-business application development using the latest in Microsoft Distributed InterNet Architecture (DNA). Perl and Unix flavors also available.