Chapter 6. Customizing Search Results

Table of Contents
Creating Search Templates
Creating Search Input Forms
Writing Expressions
Server Side Includes
WAP/WML Templates and Wireless Support

Creating Search Templates

A template is almost nothing more than an HTML document with special tags used to output Alkaline search results. On UNIX, a template must have public read permissions in order to be used. Type chmod 604 search.html (replace by your file name and location), if you get 401 Unauthorized error messages when trying to perform a search operation. Various sample templates are available at http://www.vestris.com/alkaline/asearch.cnf/ .

Virtually any HTML layout can be specified using templates. It is possible to mix script code, embedded objects, etc. Templates can have tags, extended tags and options. Simple regular expressions are available with some options.

All possible tags and options and their usage are detailed in the Search Templates Tags and Options appendix.

Simple Tag

A simple tag is always of format: 
<!--NAME-->
Tags define the location of some predefined entity in the resulting document. Each tag will be replaced by the appropriate content dynamically generated by Alkaline.

Example 

<!--SEARCH-RESULTS-->

Extended Tag

An extended tag is always of format: 
<!--NAME--expression-->
Extended tags define the location of some predefined entities in the resulting document and parameters or format for the output of the later. Each extended tag will be replaced by the appropriate content dynamically generated by Alkaline.

Example 

<!--SEARCH-GENERAL--$total results found-->

Option

An option is always of format: 
<!--SET NAME--expression-->
Options define the global behavior of the search engine output.

Example 

<!--SET DATE--$Day:$Month:$Year-->