Hi

1.
I am new to DNN.  DocHoliday spotted my announcement about our ASP.NET search engine Find in Site, saying that he loved the highlighted hits feature.  Although you can use FindinSite to index a DNN site "from the outside", I've done another job in the mean time:  I've adapted our existing SeeSearchWords tool so that it works within DNN.  SeeSearchWords (a) highlights search words in the DNN "Search Results" and when you click on a a result and (b) highlights search words that people used at Google, MSN or Yahoo to get to your site.

You can see this in action on our currently minimal DNN site here:
   http://www.phdcc.com/DNN/
Searching Google, MSN or Yahoo for SeeSearchWords will show search word highlighting (but not in our ../DNN/ directories yet because they have not been indexed yet).

Assuming that there is interest in this, we would like to make this available for sale at some suitable price.

2.
Anyway, my question is how (technically) to make this available to other DNN users.  SeeSearchWords is an httpModule and so needs an entry added to the site Web.Config file.  From reading the docs, it looks like it may not be possible to do this using a .dnn file - is this right?  Should I just issue instructions on how to do this by hand?

3.
I am trying to decide where SeeSearchWords configuration information is best stored.  It could be in another section of Web.Config.  Or should I put into a db table somewhere or other?
There is a SeeSearchWords "rules" file that I need to put somewhere as well.

4.
There seems to be a bug in DNN search.  If you do a search and get "search results".  If you then try to a new search from "search results" then the new search is not done.

5.
DocHoliday also requested a search of the DNN file content.  We have code to extract the text from DOC, PDF and TXT files.  However I am not sure how to provide the plain text to the DNN search engine.  Modules have an ISearchable.GetSearchItems but I am not sure if this helps.  Anyway, not really thought about it but if anyone has any pointers, that would be appreciated.

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Chris Cant, PHD Computer Consultants Ltd www.phdcc.com


phdcc: e-media tools and e-publishing services

1. I suppose the amount of interest would largely depend on the price you have in mind, I know myself, and I think most DNNers like cool utilities like this one. Any idea what price range you are considering?
2. you?re right the .dnn file does not support registering httpmodules in the web.config file, so you?ll have to include instructions, my downloads module also needs to register a httpHandler, I have suggested and am working on a implementation of the installer that will handle this.
3. I would suggest you combine the httpmodule with an (admin) dnnmodule, the DnnModule allows you to edit the config which is stored in the db, the httpmodule does the work and gets it?s settings from the database. I have also found that an httmodule / httphandler can inherit PortalModuleBase, making it very easy to interact with DNN itself.
4. from what I have read the are a number of bugs with the DNNSearch module, understandably it is a rather complicated thing to do after all, but like any piece of software I suppose it?s a work in progress, and knowing the core team, they would appreciate any code fixes posted in Gemini if you have the time.
5. hmmm sounds like a great addition to search, what about something like a ?search? module, you can place it on an ?Admin? page, add the files you want to be able to search to it, and implement the isearchable in the module.

 

Cheers

Paul Stevens

 

 

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"Any intelligent fool can make things bigger and more complex... It takes a touch of genius - and a lot of courage to move in the opposite direction." --Albert Einstein

Thanks Paul

As I said, we're new to DNN, so we're trying to gauge how to pitch a price, given that we'd like to earn something.  Prices for anything DNN seem to range from $6 to $50.  What would you expect to pay?  In the past, we usually provided a free trial version of any software, but I'm not sure how it could work in this case.

Making an admin module sounds feasible, though the software may need so little configuration that it could be done in a Web.Config file section.  I suggest that any new installer also include an option for including any section in a Web.Config, at the right place.  Having to store and get information from the DNN database would be a bit of work - a hurdle I've yet to overcome - though I'm sure it wouldn't be that bad.  If config were only done in the Web.Config file, then the code could be used in non-DNN environments without change.  Is it considered OK for a module to update information in the Web.Config file - probably pretty dodgy even if it is allowed.

I'll have a look at the search problem - might be straight forward.

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Chris Cant, PHD Computer Consultants Ltd www.phdcc.com


phdcc: e-media tools and e-publishing services

We'd be very interested in this facility Chris.  I'm sure you'll receive alot of interest in a functional search module for DNN.

Cheers,
Andrew

We've decided to have free and paid-for versions of SeeSearchWords, our search word highlighter.  A first cut of the free version is here for registered users (with thanks to DocHoliday for beta testing, and Paul for DNNDownload) - let me know how it survives in the real world...
   http://www.phdcc.com/DNN/Products/Downloads/tabid/56/Default.aspx
More details available here:
   http://www.phdcc.com/DNN/Default.aspx?tabid=52

The free version doesn't have any configuration options, so I've not done an admin module.  Install by uploading the two DLLs and altering Web.Config to add an httpmodule reference, as described on our site.

PS  I've also posted a suggested fix to Gemini for the search from search results problem in DNN 3.1.0

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Chris Cant, PHD Computer Consultants Ltd www.phdcc.com


phdcc: e-media tools and e-publishing services