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Table of Contents

  1. What exactly do I do to make the thing run?
  2. Where can I find the JDK, and how do I set it up?
  3. Why doesn't the Indexer Run?
  4. The search.html gives a keywords not found error alert box, what's that?
  5. The search engine doesn't work under IE?
  6. What the heck is that option thingie??

What exactly do I do to make the thing run?

I First recommend placing the appropriate meta tags in all of the files you will be indexing!!

I have noticed that many of the visitors and potential users of searchTHIS have questions about running the program. I will try to answer many of these questions in this one subnested faq question.

  1. What is the web site root directory?

    This is the base directory for your web site. In other words, most web sites have a main directory that contains multiple sub-directories below it. This main directory is most often called public_html, or something similar, and is referred to as the root directory.

  2. How do I get the files??

    From this web site. On the page that you linked to this page from, there is a zip file that you can download. The file is most likely called searchTHIS.zip, or searchTHIS2.zip if you are using the most recent version. The file is really small, and will only take a few seconds to download. Be sure to extract the files from the zip file into your web site root directory. After you do this, your computer will be set up to run the indexer. All you do now is type java indexTHIS <score> -<option>

  3. Where do I type java indexTHIS <score> -<option> ??

    At the command prompt. The command prompt can exist in many different forms, but comes standard in Windows as the MS-DOS Prompt...in Unix, it is any shell that you wish to use. In Windows, click Start-Programs-MS-DOS Prompt, and you will get a little black window, or you entire screen will become the prompt. You are now at the command prompt. Now, when you type this, the indexer will begin to run. NOTE: This could take a long time to run, depending on the size of your site, and the size of the files in it. Don't worry if the indexer just hangs up for a little while and doesn't appear to be doing anything, because it is. If an error is encountered along the way, it will bomb out and stop running, so if that doesn't occur then it is still running.

    The search.html gives a keywords not found error alert box.

    This is a rather trivial error that unfortunately can cause some major problems. I did fix this problem and everything now works nice and neately again. This bug was produced when I made the search engine IE4.0 compliant, and in essence, did away with the need for a db.js file. This file is still created, just in case Microsoft decides to change something else, I could easily compensate.

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    The search engine doesn't work under IE?

    4. This was a major overhaul of the package that required me to overcome problems with Microsoft's browsers(a mircrosoft problem??? who'd a throught) Anyway, the new search engine now works under all versions of javascript back to Nestscape 3.x, and JScript versions 2.x and above. With Netscape 3.x quickly being outdated, and IE3.0 a virtual dinosaur, this problem would have alleviated itself soon enough, but I decided to step in anyways. The only question that remains is, what version of IE started using JScript 2.x libraries. If anyone can answer this one, please email me and let me know.

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    Where can I find the JDK and how do I set it up?

    You can find the latest version of the JDK at sun's web site at http://java.sun.com/products/jdk/1.1/index.html.  If you download this onto your personal computer, which most of you will do, you must have it set up properly to run, or else you will experience errors running the Indexer.  Assuming that you install the latest version into the default directory, you have to edit your autoexec.bat file and run it before everything is setup properly.  Now mine needs a little fine tuning, but it works very well, here is the two lines you have to add(or edit) in your autoexec.bat file to make the jdk run properly:

    PATH=%PATH%;C:\WINDOWS;C:\WINDOWS\COMMAND;C:\jdk1.1.4\bin;C:\WINDOWS\JAVA;.
    SET CLASSPATH=C:\jdk1.1.4\lib\classes.zip;C:\jdk1.1.4\lib\gjt.zip;.

    Please be sure to include the period(.) somewhere in both of these, this denotes the current directory, and makes running the jdk much easier.  After you have done this, you can now go to the directory with the files that you downloaded from my site, and type:

    java Indexer .

    and it will index your site starting at the current directory.  If you need any further help, type:

    java Indexer help

    and you will get some more instructions.

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    Why doesn't the Indexer Run ?

    There are many different answers to this question.  Based on the replies I have received, I will try to post what I think are the most common problems.

    1. The Unix system, or you personal computer, does not have the jdk set up to run java.   What you need to do is set up your computer to run java, or you can contact your system administrator and see if they can put it on the server.
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    What the heck is that option thingie??

    The option is a new feature to the beta 2 release. There are two options:

    • -s -- Skip Errors, do not index files that have no meta tags. If you type:
      java indexTHIS <score> -<s>
      the indexer will notify you that a file doesn't have the proper meta tags, but will exclude it from being indexed, so that the file will not be able to be accessed by web site visitors.
    • -k -- Keep Errors, add files that have no meta tags, the user will be prompted for missing information. If you type:
      java indexTHIS <score> -<k>
      the indexer will notify you that a file doesn't have the proper meta tags, and will prompt you to enter them in. The file will be able to be accessed via your web page search.
      NOTE: This will not automatically insert the meta tags in the HTML file. I strongly recommend that you place the proper meta tags in all files you wish to be indexed prior to running the indexer.

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    Created by Paul Cleary.
    Revised: October 20, 1997.