I have written something that might be useful to you.
Unfortunately a web server is required, since CGI is used.
Apache is available for Windows, and works fine on a
stand-alone PC/notebook. I don't know of another way of
doing searches in a browser. If there is, I would benefit
from knowing about it. 

It is a CGI program, written in C, that will 
1) search SWISH-E indexes
2) display a list of matched documents, each with a summary
of lines form the original documents, with the hits
highlighted. For an example of this list check out

http://myweb.absa.co.za/jhnctzr/Knowledge_Mapper_results.htm

3) there are hyperlinks to the original documents and to an
HTML version of the document, with hits highlighted. For an
example of this, see

http://myweb.absa.co.za/jhnctzr/Knowledge_Mapper_doc.htm#HIT001

For the code, go to 

http://kmapper.sourceforge.net/

The subproject that will interest you is called
ac_search_cgi.

It relies on another subproject to filter the original
files to ASCII text, called ac_filter_docs.

Documentation on the above is very sparse at present, but
it might be what you're looking for.

Regards
Johan Coetzer

On Wed, 10 Dec 2003 10:00:28 -0800 (PST)
 Heimo Hanninen <heimohanninen@yahoo.co.uk> wrote:
> Hi SWISH-wizards
> SWISH-E looks like robust tool and very capable as an
> indexer and search tool. BUT
> 
> I have a case with "tricky" requirements and
> wondering if anyone has experienced with something 
> similar? Any hints very much appreciated.
> 
> Reqs for a web based stand alone "electronic manual":
> 
> Must:
> 
> -runs as stand alone app on typical power laptop
> -does NOT require any web server installation
> -built on top of std browser (IE-6, nice to have:
> Mozilla, Opera)
> -indexing supports across multiple manuals indexing,
> searching (one manual is basically one nested sub
> directory)
> -(X)HTML documents stored on local disk, small
> fragments, number of documents is 1000 - 10 000, total
> size of one manual 2,5 Mb - 25 Mb
> -equipped with full text search
> -GUI would be a normal DHTML "form":
>    -navigation frame, content frame, search frame
>    -search constrains entered in browser's search
> frame
> -searching is fast (based on indexed terms)
> -returns hit list back to browser view (or separate
> browser window) where you can pick a target and
> traverse the link and show up the document content
> 
> Nice to have:
> -free license (at least for distribution, 
>  reasonable site licence cost for publishing
> "e-manuals" is acceptable)
> 
> Notes:
> -(X)HTML docs generated from XML, so additional
> attributes, PIs, comments can be added to ease out
> indexing
> -Indexing files can be done even as a command line
> batch run, whenever new manual loaded or updated.
> 
> 
> I figure, Key question is how to integrate SWISH-E to
> std web browser say, IE 6.
> 
> Can I just create a an HTML form and
> capture and send the string and other constrains to
> search engine using Jscript. Reading the hit list
> and rendering the results back to browser view...
> 
> Or could I compile SWISH-E source into DLL-object and
> use ActiveX control in IE? A doomed plan?
> 
> thanks for reading this far ;)
> 
> Heimo Hanninen
> ..many things are possible....not feasible
> 
> 
> 
>
________________________________________________________________________
> BT Yahoo! Broadband - Save £80 when you order online
> today. Hurry! Offer ends 21st December 2003. The way the
> internet was meant to be.
>
http://uk.rd.yahoo.com/evt=21064/*http://btyahoo.yahoo.co.uk

Johan Coetzer
Tel: 012-5676457(H) 011-7993426(W)
Cell:  072-1061675
Email: jcoetzer@mailbox.co.za
___________________________________________
 Look Good, Feel Good www.healthiest.co.za