Using HouseSpider 4.7
Developed by Keith L.
Jackson - up to
and including version 4.0 - and later by
Hans Fr. Nordhaug.
This version was released 22nd of May 2005.
HouseSpider is a Java applet that adds indexing and search capability to a web
site. The example above is set up to spider through the homepage for
HouseSpider - housespider.sf.net. The
pages for version 4.0 is excluded from the search using the
"URLExclude" tag.
There are four elements to its user interface:
- Text input box - upper left. Enter your search term here.
- Combined start/stop search and go button. When you enter a search term the
button to the right of the text input box turns into a magnifying glass. Click this
button to start an exhaustive search of the web site. Click it once more
to stop a search before all result are found. Some notes on
searching are listed below:
- case is ignored (e.g., "mexico" will find "Mexico"),
- partial strings are matched (e.g., "mex" will find "Mexico" and "Texmex")
- special characters count (e.g., "méxico" will find "México",
but not Mexico)
When the search is done and a link is chosen from the site list,
the button will change to an arrow (go) button.
- Help button. This button will take you to this page.
- Site list - lower window. Web pages associated with the search term are displayed here.
You may select a listing and then double-click or click the arrow (go) button
to go to the link. If a link is selected, its corresponding URL is displayed in
the browser's status line (just like when your mouse is over a link in a normal
web page).
In addition there is a optional status line located under the site list.
Search terms
The search terms in the text input box can consist of phrases,
exclude-words or logical expressions. Case is always ignored. (In my
and Google's opinion
case-sensitive searches are not needed.)
- Phrases: Search words enclosed by quotes are treated as one phrase.
- Exclude-words: Search words starting with a minus (-) are treated as
exclude-words, i.e., words that should not be matched.
- Logical expressions: Use "|" and "&" to make
logical or/and-expressions. The default is to
assume "and" between all words, that is, all words/phrases in the text
input box should be matched, so the use of "&" is not
necessary. (A word starting with a plus (+) is also
treated as part of a logical and-expression.)
Some examples:
| Text input box |
|
Meaning of input |
| "hello you" bye |
|
Will match pages containing the phrase "hello you" and
the word "bye". |
| hello | you | bye |
|
Will match pages containing at least one of the words "hello", "you" and
"bye". |
| hello you bye |
|
Will match pages containing all the words "hello", "you" and
"bye". |
| hello & you & bye |
|
Same as above. |
| hello +you +bye |
|
Same as above. |
| hello -you bye |
|
Will match pages containing the words "hello" and
"bye", but not "you". |
| -"hello you" tea | coffee |
|
Will match pages that don't contain the phrase
"hello you " and contain one of the words
"tea" and "coffee".. |
Note that you should quote the search word if special characters and/or
logical operators appear in the start of the word.
