Create an Offline Search Engine

Knowledge Base Article: kb01

Introduction

Search Maker Pro can create an offline search engine to be published via CD-ROM, DVD or other methods.

This can be useful when publishing media that runs from the CD. You may not want to run an application on the user’s PC. Instead you may wish to just provide HTML type files on the disk.

It may be difficult provide a search under these conditions as there is no physical server to actually perform the search.

Search Maker Pro performs the search on the client and can be used to provide an offline search engine on the CD or DVD without requiring the user to install software or using a localhost server port.

Costs

There are no per-disk license fees when using Search Maker Pro. There is only 1 initial purchase cost for the application itself. The generated search engine can be freely distributed on as many CD/DVDs as you wish.

Creating the offline search

Run the application as normal.

At step 1 you choose the indexing method.

• If your pages are linked using <a href> tags then choose the "index a whole website" option. Then select the main index page to index.
• If you have unlinked HTML file in folders then choose the "select individual pages to index" option. Then use the "Add Many Files" button to add all your files to the index queue.

Go through the normal process of creating a search using your preferred options.

Relative links

It is important to use relative links when creating an offline search engine. This means that your search will work when placed on the CD/DVD.

If you are used the "Add Many Files" option then absolute links will have been created. You are given the option to convert these to relative. Do this and remove the drive letter from the URLS

The URLS will be converted like this:

Absolute URL	Relative URL
c:publish filesentry1.html	entry1.html
c:publish filesentry2.html	entry2.html
c:publish filesotherentry3.html	other/entry3.html

Publish the offline search on the CD-ROM/DVD

A single HTML file will have been created. Place this search.html on the CD or DVD to be published. It should be placed in the same folder as the HTML files.

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