Copyright: Copyright© 2000, Relevant Software Inc.
Citation: Copyright© 2000, Relevant Software Inc.


Overview

The Knowledge Base Manager is a program installed on your computer by netXtract. Its purpose is to allow you to view and manipulate the Knowledge Base entries you have saved from Web documents using netXtract.

Background

Among other features, netXtract allows you to save any piece of a Web document displayed in your IE browser. Each such piece is called a Knowledge Base entry. It consists of:

•	The title of the Web page from which the entry was taken (or the title entered by you when you saved it).

•	The original URL of the Web document from which the entry was taken.

•	The date when the entry was saved.

•	The set of keywords that you entered when you saved the entry.

•	The body: the range of text that you have selected from the Web document for saving (which you may have modified, for instance by adding your own comments).

All such entries that you have saved are stored by netXtract into a file on your computer, called the Knowledge Base. Therefore this file will contain every single piece of the Web documents that you have saved using netXtract.

This approach allows you to get back to the pieces of information that you have found of interest in Web documents without having to connect to the remote computer on the web which stores the original document. It also allows you to easily move, backup or transfer your personal Knowledge Base (to other computers, to another location on your computer, etc).

The Knowledge Base Manager is the interface that allows you to explore this Knowledge Base file.  It is designed to be:

•	Familiar

•	Intuitive

•	Flexible

•	Scalable

The Knowledge Base Manager will feel familiar to you: with its two vertical panes, it resembles the Windows Explorer (in fact, it is similar to the new Windows 2000 Explorer, integrating the search results). The left pane displays the hierarchy of classification criteria you choose. The right pane displays the entries for the classification criteria selected in the left pane.

The Knowledge Base Manager is intuitive: it uses the typical Windows menus, toolbars and pop-up tooltips to help you quickly understand what each function does. Right-click context menus are provided as quick ways to invoke functions on the visual element being clicked or selected.

The Knowledge Base Manager flexibility comes from its ability to offer you the data you are looking for, in a variety of views. You may view the data classified by any of the following classification criteria:

•	By Category: the left pane displays hierarchy of Categories you have created, usually in the process of saving new entries to the Knowledge Base. This is the default view on the data.

•	By Date: the left pane displays all the dates when you have saved entries to your Knowledge Base, broken down by year, month and day. Therefore, you may look at the entries saved on December 20, 1999; or you may look at all the entries saved in December, or even all the entries saved over the year of 1999.

•	By URL: the left pane displays all the Web servers from which you have saved entries. Therefore you can look at all the entries you have collected from www.netXtract.com, for instance.

•	By Keyword: the left pane displays all the keywords you have entered when you saved entries to the Knowledge Base. Therefore, you can always look at all entries that have the "programming" keyword, regardless of when or where they were saved from, or in which Knowledge Base category they reside.

Of course, you can also perform full text searches on the Knowledge Base. The Search feature in the Knowledge Base Manager gives you a set of options (match casing, match whole words, include the URL address in the search, or restrict the search to a certain time period). The search results are displayed by default in descending order of saved dates, and are integrated in the left pane. In this way you can easily switch from looking at the search results to looking at data based on the classification criteria you have currently chosen (by Category, Date, Keyword, URL).

Furthermore, all search results are preserved for as long as you want (another search will not destroy the previous search results). In this way you can switch between search results without having to re-do searches. The search results will only be dismissed when you explicitly request that, or when you exit the Knowledge Base Manager.

The Knowledge Base Manager is also scalable: we recognized that over time the amount of information that you collect from Web documents into your Knowledge Base can grow to a significant size. Therefore, the Knowledge Base Manager implements various mechanisms that allow it to maintain a high level of performance even when the size of your data grows significantly. These mechanisms are not necessarily visible when you start using the Knowledge Base Manager, but will become more significant once your Knowledge Base grows.

Read more about scalability.

Regardless of how you are looking at the entries in your Knowledge Base, the Knowledge Base Manager allows you to:

•	Re-open any entry in your default Web browser. This will take you to the original Web document from which you have saved the entry, and (if IE is your default browser), select the location in the document from which the entry was originally picked.

•	Move entries from their current category to any other category.

•	Edit the contents (text body) of any entry.

•	Edit the keywords associated with any entry.

•	Copy any entry to the clipboard.

•	Email any entry to another person, using you default mail program.

•	Delete any entry.

It also offers also category-level operations:

•	Bulk delete entries, by deleting the whole category, or all entries saved on a certain day, month or year, or all entries having a certain keyword, or from a given Web server.

•	Move categories, so that you can always re-arrange your hierarchy of categories.

•	Create new categories.

•	Rename categories.

Read more about the core functions of the Knowledge Base Manager.


Core functionality

Knowledge Base Manager's main purpose is to allow you to view and manipulate the Knowledge Base entries you have saved from Web documents using netXtract. Since it is designed to operate in a fashion similar to Windows Explorer, your interaction with it is based on selecting and invoking operations in the two panels:

•	the left panel, which displays the current classification criteria you have chosen for your Knowledge Base (similar to the Folders pane in Window Explorer).

•	the right panel, which displays the saved Knowledge Base entries based on the criteria you have selected in the left panel (similar to the files view in Windows Explorer).

Viewing entries

Knowledge Base Manager offers a variety of ways to look at the entries you have saved into your Knowledge Base. First, there are 4 pre-defined classification criteria, selectable from the View | Select view menu, or from the toolbar, with one click:

•	by Category: the left panel displays the hierarchy of categories you have created in the Knowledge Base. This is the default view. Select a category in the left panel to view (in the right panel) all entries saved under that category.

•	by Date: the left panel displays all dates when Knowledge Base entries were saved, broken down by year, month and day. Select a date in the left panel to display (in the right panel) all entries saved on that date. For instance select a certain month to display all entries saved in that month; select a day to display all entries saved that day, etc.

•	by URL: the left panel displays all domain names of the URLs from which you have saved entries. Select a URL in the left panel to display (in the right panel) all entries saved from the domain.

•	by Keywords: the left panel displays all the keywords entered when you saved the entries. Select a keyword in the left panel to display (in the right panel) all entries saved with that keyword.

Beside these pre-defined classification criteria used to view the entries, you can search the entire Knowledge Base by selecting the Tools | Search menu, or by selecting the button with the magnifying glass from the toolbar:

The other two buttons are used to clear search results when you do not need them anymore. This is because the Knowledge Base Manager preserves all the search results until you explicitly clear them (in other words, when you do a new search, the results of the new search will not replace the old ones; all the search results from all the searches are preserved, until you clear either one set of results, or all of them):

Click on any set of search results to display in the right panel all the found entries.

Manipulating categories and entries

The Knowledge Base Manager editing functions can be divided into two main categories:

1. Functions that operate on categories (in the left panel). You can invoke these by selecting or right-clicking a category and choosing the applicable item from the pop-up or the Category menu:

•	create a new category

•	move category

•	rename category

•	delete category

2. Functions that operate on entries (in the right panel). You can invoke these by selecting or right-clicking an entry and choosing the applicable item from the pop-up or Entry menu:

•	open original document in browser (go to URL)

•	edit entry

•	delete entry

•	move entry to another category

•	send entry by email

•	copy entry to clipboard

You can also "bulk delete" entries by deleting the entire category (or other classification criteria) from the left panel. This allows you (depending on what classification criteria you are currently using to view the entries) to delete all entries in a category or all entries saved during a selected month, or day, or year, or using a selected keyword, or from a selected URL. Simply right-click the classification criteria node in the left panel and select Delete (or choose the Category | Delete menu).

The Knowledge Base Manager also allows you to print. You may print the currently selected entry or all entries for the selected classification criteria. Just select the KBase | Print menu or click the toolbar button showing a printer. Print preview is also available from the KBase | Print Preview menu.


Creating a new category

To create a new category in your Knowledge Base:

•	in Category view, select from the left panel a parent category, or select Local Knowledge Base if you want the new category to be a top-level one (i.e. not a subcategory of an existing category).

•	right-click that category and choose Create New from the pop-up menu, or  choose Category | Create new from the main menu. Just like when creating a new folder in Windows Explorer, a new category node is created in the tree in the left panel and its name can be immediately edited in place.

There is no limit to the number of categories, or to their nesting level. Although nesting categories is very helpful in classifying your data and we highly recommend it, nesting more than 4-5 levels will actually make it more difficult for you to find the information you are looking for. As a guideline, use the same principles that work for you in managing files and folders with your Windows Explorer.

Tip: always use relevant and distinct names for the categories in your Knowledge Base; it will help you find the data you are looking for a lot easier.

Tip: create a meaningful hierarchy of categories. Don't use only top-level categories. Break a category into subcategories that are clear subdomains of the domain modeled by the parent category. For instance, if you have a category called Medical, it's a good idea to create subcategories that are important to you from the medical domain, such as Pulmonary, Cardiology, and so on. When saving entries, save those that are generally related to medicine in the main Medical category, and those which are specifically related to cardiology in the Cardiology subcategory. That way, when looking for data related to cardiology, you'll know immediately where to go. Remember, however, that nesting too deep may make finding information more difficult rather than easier. Find the balance between classification and ease of use that works for you.

Created the category in the wrong place, or not happy with the category name?

•	move the category

•	rename the category

•	delete the category


Moving a category

To move a Knowledge Base category in the hierarchy:

•	in Category view, from the left panel select the category you want to move

•	drag the category with the mouse to the new position in the hierarchy, the same way you would move a folder in Windows Explorer. Alternatively, right-click it and choose Move from the pop-up menu, or choose Category | Move from the main menu. This will present you with a dialog where you can choose the new position of the selected category in the hierarchy. Either way, notice that you cannot move the category under one of its existing subcategories.

Want to create a new category, or not happy with a category name?

•	create a new category

•	rename the category

•	delete the category


Renaming a category

To rename a Knowledge Base category:

•	in Category view, from the left panel select the category you want to rename

•	right-click it and choose Rename from the pop-up menu, or choose Category | Rename from the main menu. This will allow you to edit the name of the category in place, just like when you are renaming a folder in Windows Explorer.

Want to create a new category, or not happy with a category position in the hierarchy?

•	create a new category

•	move the category

•	delete the category


Deleting a category

To delete a Knowledge Base category:

•	in Category view, from the left panel select the category you want to delete

•	right-click it and choose Delete from the pop-up menu, or choose Category | Delete from the main menu. This will first ask you to confirm the action, as all Knowledge Base entries and subcategories in the selected category will be deleted. This action cannot be undone, so make sure that you are certain that you want to delete everything stored under that category.

Want to create a new category, or not happy with a category position in the hierarchy?

•	create a new category

•	move the category

•	delete the category


Going from an entry to the original document

When looking at Knowledge Base entries in the right panel you may decide to have another look at an original document from which you saved an entry - this allows you to see the saved entry in the context of its original document. There are several ways to do that:

•	click on the URL of the entry, displayed in blue, similar to a link in a Web page

•	double-click anywhere on the entry in the right panel

•	right-click on the entry in the right panel, then choose Go to URL from the pop-up menu, or choose Entry | Go to URL from the main menu

Regardless of the method chosen, the Knowledge Base Manager will launch your default Web browser and point it to the original URL of the document.

Tip: if IE is your default browser, the Knowledge Base Manager will not only take you to the original document, but it will also scroll in that document to the location from which the entry was saved, and highlight the text. Note that this may not be accurate if the document on the Web has been modified after you have saved the entry. Also, the document may not be reachable if it resides on a secure site that first requires you to login, such as a document in a Web-based email system (such as Hotmail, Yahoo, etc).


Editing an entry

To edit the contents of a Knowledge Base entry, right-click the desired entry in the right panel, then choose Edit from the pop-up menu; alternatively, choose Entry | Edit from the main menu. This will bring up a dialog box similar to the one used when you originally saved the entry:

This dialog box allows you to:

•	change the title of the entry

•	change the list of keywords associated with the entry

•	change the body (text) of the entry. For instance, you can reformat the text or add your own comments to it.

Note that the date or the original URL of the entry are not modified by this operation.


Deleting an entry

To delete a Knowledge Base entry, right-click the desired entry in the right panel, then choose Delete from the pop-up menu; alternatively, choose Entry |  Delete from the main menu, or press Ctrl and X. The Knowledge Base Manager will respond by asking you to confirm the operation. When you confirm, the entry is deleted.

Please note that this operation cannot be undone.

Read about deleting multiple entries at the same time.


Moving an entry

To move a Knowledge Base entry to another category than the one it currently resides in, right-click the desired entry in the right panel, then choose Move to category from the pop-up menu; alternatively, choose Entry |  Move to category from the main menu. The Knowledge Base Manager will present you with a dialog box (similar to the one used to move categories) where you can pick the new category for the entry.


Sending en entry by email

The Knowledge Base Manager allows you to send any entry by email, using your default mailer. To email an entry, right-click of the desired entry and choose Send by email from the pop-up menu. Aternatively, choose Entry | Send by email from the main menu. The Knowledge Base Manager will respond by starting your mail program and showing its "compose new message". Here you will need to fill in the email address(es) of the recipients and add the entry in the body of the message.

You can easily fill in the body of the message with the contents of the selected entry by pasting (press Ctrl and V) in the message body (Knowledge Base Manager has already copied the entry to the clipboard).

Note (in case you are wondering why the Knowledge Base Manager doesn't fill in the message body with the selected entry): in order to keep the Knowledge Base Manager generic (i.e. able to work with any default mailer you may use) we had to avoid using a specific interface to a mail system to fill in the message body. Instead, we chose to copy the selected entry to the clipboard and all you need to do is press Ctrl + V  (paste) into the body of the message. This will work with any present mailer you may use, or even with new mailers that are not yet on the market.


Copying an entry to clipboard

To copy a Knowledge Base entry to the clipboard, right-click the desired entry in the right panel, then choose Copy from the pop-up menu; alternatively, choose Entry | Copy from the main menu. The Knowledge Base Manager will copy the entry to the clipboard as text, so that you can paste it in any application that allows pasting of text (word processor, email program, etc).


Searching for entries

The Knowledge Base Manager allows you to run searches against the entire Knowledge Base. To use this feature, choose Tools | Search from the main menu, or press Ctrl and S, or click the magnifying glass button in the toolbar. This will bring up a dialog box where you can enter your search options:

At a minimum, you need to enter the text to search for.

When no other search options are specified, the search is performed against the keywords and text bodies of all the entries in the Knowledge Base. Even incomplete words that match your text will be returned, case insensitive. To change this default behavior, the Search box offers extended options:

•	match case: only words matching the exact casing of your text will be returned.

•	match whole words: only entire words matching your text will be returned.

•	include the URL of the entry in the search.

•	date restrictions: only entries saved in the period entered that match your text will be returned.

The Knowledge Base Manager executes the searches in the background, allowing you to make as many search requests as you like, without having to wait for previous ones to complete. Or, you may continue looking at other entries, or change the view. The search(es) you have started will be preserved.

As each search request is started (by pressing the Find now button in the search dialog), you will notice a new node added to the Search Results node in the left panel. As long as a search is still running, the text of the node will say "Searching for <your text>" ; when the search completes, the icon of the node changes and the text of the node will say "Results for <your text>: 123 matches".

All search results are preserved (a new search will not replace the results of the previous search) so that you can always switch between multiple search results. This feature allows you to build your own way of looking at the entries in your Knowledge Base.

When you don't need a set of search results anymore, right-click it and choose Clear results from the pop-up menu, or click the [image] from the toolbar. You may also get rid of all the search results at once, by right-clicking on the "Search Results" node itself and choosing Close all results from the pop-up menu, or by clicking the [image] in the toolbar.

Note: the search results will be preserved even when you switch the view (for instance, from Category to Date). To clear the search results, you need to explicitly ask the Knowledge Base Manager to do that, as described in the paragraph above. The search results are also cleared when you close the Knowledge Base Manager (if you close it, you will need to request the search again when you re-start the Knowledge Base Manager).


Printing entries

To print one entry from the Knowledge Base, select it and choose KBase | Print from the main menu. You will be presented with the standard Print dialog box, where you may change your printing options, then click OK.

To print all entries currently displays in the right panel, choose KBase | Print from the main menu; in the standard Print dialog box that pops up, make sure that the All button is checked (as opposed to the Selection button). You may change your print options, then click OK.

The Knowledge Base Manager offers Print Preview so that you can see how the printout will look on paper. To use this feature, choose KBase | Print from the main menu.


Deleting more entries at a time

There are circumstances when you may want to delete a certain set of entries. We recognized that asking you to delete one entry at a time would be very time consuming, therefore we implemented ways of getting rid of multiple entries with one command. This function can be easily accomplished by selecting the node from the classification criteria in the left panel. Right-click it and choose Delete from the pop-up menu. You will always be asked to confirm the operation, as it cannot be undone.

For example:

•	To delete entries by category (i.e. all entries in a category) switch to category view, right-click the category you want to delete and choose Delete from the pop-up menu. This will also delete the category itself, but you can easily re-create it if you still want to keep the category in your Knowledge Base.
Note: this will also delete any sub-categories the selected category may have, and their entries. To avoid this, first move the subcategories you want to keep to another location in the hierarchy. Basically, this function works exactly the same as deleting a folder from Windows Explorer.

•	To delete entries by date saved (for instance, to get rid of all entries saved on a specific day, or month, or year): switch do Date view and right-click the day / month / year you want to delete, then choose Delete from the pop-up menu. You will be asked to confirm the operation. When you confirm, all entries saved on that day, month or year (depending on what you have selected) will be deleted.

•	To delete by keyword (for instance, to get rid of all entries having "example" as an associated keyword): switch to Keyword view and right-click the keyword ("example"), then choose Delete from the pop-up menu. You will be asked to confirm the operation. When you confirm, all entries having "example" as a keyword will be deleted.

•	To delete by URL (for instance, to get rid of all entries saved from www.badserver.com): switch to URL view and right-click the URL (www.badserver.com), then choose Delete from the pop-up menu. You will be asked to confirm the operation. When you confirm, all entries saved from the selected URL will be deleted.


Connecting to a central Knowledge Base Server

(Only available in Enterprise version)

The netXtract Enterprise version allows you to save entries not only to your local Knowledge Base, but also to a central Knowledge Base Server, set up by your network administrator. In this  way, multiple users can contribute to an enterprise-wide (or department-wide) Knowledge Base that can be later exploited by co-workers, either from their Knowledge Base Manager or through their Web browser.

This section describes how to use a central (enterprise or department-wide) Knowledge Base from your Knowledge Base Manager.

By default, the Knowledge Base Manager allows you to access your local Knowledge Base. However, if you need to use a Knowledge Base stored on a central server, choose the KBase | Connect menu. This will show a dialog with all known Knowledge Base servers on your network. Choose the one you want to use (for example "Financial Knowledge Base"), and a new node will appear in the left pane with the name of that Knowledge Base, next to the existing "Local Knowledge Base" node. You will be able to use the Knowledge Base from that server in the same way you use your local Knowledge Base. However, you may be subject to security restrictions set by your network administrator (such as: you may be asked to login in order to identify yourself, certain operations -such as edit, delete, move- may be denied, etc).

The Knowledge Base Manager allows you to connect to as many central Knowledge Base servers as you want at the same time.


Knowledge Base statistics

The Knowledge Base Manager allows you to get statistics from your Knowledge Base. To use this feature, press Ctrl and 1, or choose KBase | Statistics from the main menu. You will be presented with a window that displays statistics about your Knowledge Base:

This shows you:

•	Current size of the Knowledge Base, and current free disk space on the disk where the Knowledge Base resides. This way you can quickly determine whether your disk can handle more entries, or if you actually need to make more room on your disk.

•	Total number of categories you have created.

•	Total number of entries you have saved.

•	Size of the largest entry,

•	Size of the smallest entry.

•	Average entry size.

•	Date of oldest entry.

•	Date of most recent entry.


Scalability

The Knowledge Base Manager implements various mechanisms that allow it to maintain a high level of performance, even when the size of your data grows significantly.

An example is the Navigation Bar, which automatically becomes visible when the right pane needs to display a large number of entries.

For instance, you may have a large number of entries saved under the same category (we generally recommend that you try to keep the number of entries you save under one category to a reasonable limit, simply because it will make finding an entry much easier later on). If you have saved several hundred entries under one category, when you click on that category in the left pane, the right pane will display the first 50 entries in the category, by date, in descending order (i.e., most recently saved entries are at the top). The Navigation Bar will become visible and will allow you to move to the next set of entries, exactly the same way a Web search engine results page works. Of course, you can adjust the number of entries displayed at a time in the right panel, based on the performance you experience (which is based on your computer hardware and the size of the entries saved).

Read more about using the Navigation Bar.

Another example of mechanisms that make the Knowledge Base Manager scalable is the multiple concurrent searches that run in the background, allowing you to continue working with the Knowledge Base while the search requests you have made are executing.

Read more about searching the Knowledge Base.


Using the Navigation Bar

The Navigation Bar is one of the features that makes Knowledge Base Manager scalable. You will only see it when the right pane needs to display a large number of entries.

The Navigation Bar displays the current range of entries being viewed, and offers buttons to move to the next, previous, first or last page of entries. It also allows you to adjust how many entries at a time are being displayed onto one page.

By default, the Knowledge Base Manager is set to display up to 50 entries in the right pane. However, there are situations when the right pane needs to display more entries than 50 (such as when you have performed a search that returned many results, or when you have clicked on a category or date that has more than 50 entries). In this case the Navigation Bar will help you manage the large number of entries, by "paging" them the way an Internet Search engine typically shows its search results. Each "page" has up to a certain number of entries, and you can always go to the next, previous, first or last page of results.

Note: you may need to adjust the default number of entries that are displayed before the Knowledge Base Manager starts breaking them into pages. To do that, use the up-down arrows in the Navigation Bar or change it from your view preferences. This setting will be preserved until you change it again.

Although the Navigation Bar is shown or hidden automatically, based on whether it is required or not, you can also show or hide it manually, from the View | Navigation Bar menu. You may also drag the bar and attach it to the bottom of the right pane, or leave it floating at any position on screen.


Customizing the Knowledge Base manager

To customize the Knowledge Base Manager, select the View | Preferences menu. You will be presented with a dialog where you can set your look and feel preferences, as well as the "paging" limit:

Read more about paging and scalability.


Obtaining technical support

Technical support is available on the product web site and by email. Choose the Help | Support menu and select the type of support you want.

If you choose support on the Web, the Knowledge Base Manager will open your default Web browser and take you to the product web site, where you can read the latest information, questions and answers.

If you choose email support, the Knowledge Base Manager will start your default mailer "compose message" and the support address will be filled in. You just need to fill in subject line and the body of the message; please make sure to specify:

•	The operating system and version you are using (Windows 95 / 98 first edition / 98 second edition / NT 4 + service pack / 2000).

•	The version of your IE browser (select IE's Help | About menu).

•	A detailed description of the problem (the operation you were trying to perform and the result that puzzled you).


Suggesting a new feature

We would greatly appreciate any comments or suggestions you may have regarding netXtract. In this way we can continue to improve the product and add the features that you really want.

To send us your comments / suggestions email the technical support group, by choosing the Help | Support | by email menu and fill in the message body with your opinions. We try to respond as quickly as possible and let you know what our view is with regard to your suggestion.


Knowledge Base Entry

Any piece of a document from your IE browser that you have saved to the Knowledge Base. An entry has:

•	title (from the Web document or entered manually when the entry was saved)

•	URL (the location where the original document resides)

•	date (the date when the entry was saved)

•	keywords (one ore more, entered when the entry was saved)

•	body (the range of text selected from the original Web document and possibly modified with your own comments).


Knowledge Base Category

A category serves as a folder for entries related to the same domain. Categories help you find the data you are looking for a lot easier, because they are the primary classification criteria for the entries in your Knowledge Base. A category usually represents a specific domain of interest to you.