Bert,

I have developed a Tcl/Tk front-end and a modified version of the
sample perl swish-interface script which allow local operation
under HP/UX without requiring a web-server to be running. Both
Tcl/Tk and perl are available under win95/NT. You can use any
language to create the front-end application if Tcl/Tk doesn't suit.

The trick is to configure your browser to invoke a search front
end application as a 'helper' application.

I did this as follows:

 1) Create the local interface application, let's call it
    "local search interface" or 'lsi'.

 2) Create a dummy file called 'launch.lsi', contents unimportant,
    but mine contains some html which says that if you see this
    message then your browser is not properly configured.

 3) Configure your browser to invoke the helper application
    'lsi' whenever it loads a file with the extension '.lsi'

 4) Add "Search" links to your site which contain a url of the
    type:

	file:///c:/my_path/launch.lsi

What happens is this:

 a) Your user clicks on the Search link/icon on a page in your site
 b) Browser loads the file 'launch.lsi', recognises the extension
    and invokes the helper application 'lsi'.
 c) Helper application 'lsi' provides the user with a typical search
    GUI into which the user can enter their search parameters
 d) When the user presses the [Search] button on the lsi application
    it composes a query, invokes 'swish-local' and passes it the
    query as a command-line parameter
 e) 'swish-local' parses the query, invokes swish++, parses the
    results, composes the search results page and outputs it to stdout
 f) 'lsi' captures the results page and write it to disk
 g) 'lsi' invokes the browser and passes it the results file
    to be displayed:

	netscape -remote openURL(file://result_full_file_name) -raise

 h) browser pops up from the background and loads the results page.
 i) 'lsi' captures and displays any error output from the browser. If
    there isn't any then it terminates.

Hope this gives you some ideas.

Rgds,
Kenneth

Bert Hiddink wrote:
> 
> Dear everyone,
> 
> Anyone achived to develop a Windows front end to search local HTML
> files with Swish-E either through a Swish-E DLL or other solutions?
> 
> Please inform me!
> 
> Many thanks in advance!
> ****************************
> 
> Bert Hiddink
> FUNDACION GALILEO
> Correo electronico: hiddink@sipromicro.com
> Sitio: www.sipromicro.com
> Tel. +506 280 8683
> Telefax. +506 280 8847
> 
> ****************************

-- 
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Kenneth Green                           +61 3 9210 5541 Tel. & Voicemail
R&D Project Manager                     +61 3 9210 5550 FAX
                                        kenneth_green@hp.com
Advanced Networks Division              PO Box 221, Blackburn Vic 3130
Hewlett-Packard Australia Ltd           AUSTRALIA
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