Search the AOLserver

There are two ways to search the AOLserver:

• Any user can choose the Tools Search Server menu option in AOLpress and search any server that is configured as "Searchable" in the [NS\Server\server-name\Module\nstext] section in the AOLserver configuration file. (See Chapter 3 for information on AOLserver configuration.)

• System users and the nsadmin user can search any server by following the Full Text Processing link on the AOLserver Administration page and then following the Search Server link on the Full Text Administration Page.

1. From an AOLpress page window, choose Tools Search Server. Choose the AOLserver you want to search from the dialog that appears.

   Alternatively, you can choose Tools Administer Server, choose the AOLserver you want to search, follow the Full Text Processing link on the AOLserver Administration page, and then follow the Search Server link on the Full Text Administration page.

   A search form appears, allowing you to specify key words and URLs to search for.
   

2. Enter the keywords you want to search for in the Enter a word or words field. There are two types of searches you can perform. Choose the type of search in the Type of Search field as follows:
   • Similarity: Searching for similar words means that your keywords (and the root forms of your keywords) will be used to search the full-text index on the server. For example, a keyword of "publishing" would find pages whose indexes contained "publish" or "published" as well as "publishing".

   • Boolean: A boolean search allows you to use logical operators with your keywords. You can use the "and", "or", and "!" (not) operators, plus parentheses to show precedence. Some examples are:

       search and delete
       (cat and dog) or (rat and mouse)
       !horse
   

   Note that when you search for pages by qualifying on specific keywords, you must search for "meaningful" search words, words that would appear as index words for the page. If you search only for "noise" words, such as "the" or "a" or numbers, you will receive an error message.

3. If you want to limit the number of pages that the search will return, specify that number in the Maximum Pages to Return field. (The AbsMaxToReturn parameter in the configuration file takes precedence if the Maximum Pages to Return field is greater than the AbsMaxToReturn parameter.)

4. If you want to limit your search to a specific group of URLs, enter a URL or URL prefix in the Restrict search to what URLs field.

5. Press the Search button. A results page is displayed, containing links to all the pages that matched your search criteria. Pages are returned in relevance-ranked order.
   

6. Follow one of the links to a page that matched your criteria to display a highlighted version of the page. The highlighted page contains all the text of the original page and marks any query terms with the HTML strong tag. The first term is marked as a named anchor and when a user traverses a link to a highlighted page, the browser scrolls directly to that first term.

   At the bottom of the highlighted page, there are links to the "original document" and "documents like this one".

7. If you follow the link to the original document, the page that matched your search criteria is displayed in its normal, non-highlighted form, suitable for editing.

8. If you follow the link to the documents like this one, AOLserver performs a search on pages that match the full-text index of this page. Up to 25 pages will be returned.