HTMLSearch
Dave Holden
Introduction
This is the search program that was left off some of the RISC World Volume 3 CDs. The program is designed to search the entire contents of volume 3 to make it easier and quicker to find specific articles.
Copy the program to your hard drive and de-archive it. The program contains the indexing information to enable it to carry out a search, but once you have done this, to access the article(s) you will need to have the RISC World Volume 3 CD in your CD drive.
If you are using Warm Silence's CDROMFS then you will need to make a small alteration to the !HTMLsrch !Run file. Just load the !Run file into your text editor and follow the instructions you will see there.
Instructions
This program will search the HTML files of the RISC World Volume 3 Magazine CD. It will create an HTML file which can be Saved and then loaded into a browser. This will then give links to each file where the search string was found.
As well as the link a single line of text where the search string was found can also be included to illustrate the context.
The control window
To use the program run it in the usual way and then click SELECT on the icon. The main control window will then open.
At the left-hand side are four option buttons, 'Reverse', 'Whole words', 'Case sensitive' and 'Show line'.
If 'Reverse' is OFF then the search will start at Issue 1. If 'Reverse' is ON then, as you might guess, the search starts with Issue 6 and goes backwards. This is often useful because the most recent entries will be found first.
If 'Case sensitive' is ON only text which matches the case of the search string will be found, if it is OFF case is ignored. If the search string is 'Test' then with this option ON only exact matches will be found, if OFF 'test', TEST, etc. will also be matched.
If 'Whole words' is ON then the matched text will need to be complete words. For example, with this off, if you were searching for 'test' words like 'latest', 'tests', 'testing' would also be found. With it ON only the word 'test' would be found. (Please see the notes under 'Problems' before using this option).
If 'Show line' is ON then a line of text where the search string was found will be shown after the link. If it was found more than once in a file then each line where it was found will be included. If 'Show line' is OFF then just the link will be shown.
Using HTMLsrch
In use the program should be self evident. When you have entered the search string (which must have at least three characters) and set the various buttons as you want them just click on 'Begin' or press RETURN.
The '#' (hash) character is used as a 'wildcard' which means it will match any single character. For example, 'de#d would match 'dead' or deed'.
All you will see until the search is complete is the file being searched and the matches in being counted.
When the search is complete a 'Save' window will open. You can drag the file icon in this window to any filer window, changing the filename first if you wish. If you close the Save window before you save the file then it can be opened again from the icon bar menu. Alternatively you can drag it directly to your Browser.
'Stop', as the name suggests, will abort the search at any stage. If some matches have been found when you click on 'Stop' you can save the results of the partial search from the iconbar menu. Closing the main window while a search is underway has the same effect as clicking on 'Stop'.
The 'Whole words' system is not completely foolproof. A 'terminating character' is regarded as anything other than the letters a-z, A-Z or the figures 0-9. A word must also begin with one of these characters, a pound sign (£) or an exclamation mark (!) so words which start with 'foreign' characters or any other symbols will NOT be found when this option is on. In practice, provided you are aware of this limitation, it is not likely to cause problems. If in doubt switch off 'Whole words' since if the word or phrase you are looking for does contain this type of character you are not likely to have many false matches anyway.
Dave Holden