1-800eHelp - Add a search form to your web

ACM Systems incorporates Microsoft Index Server for it's web site search capabilities. The Index Server provides more robust and rich search performance than FrontPage Search Bots. Because of this performance boost, setting up a site search form becomes a little more complex. Please refer to the below tutorial on how to setup a search form on your web.

Note: this feature is available to those customers that have a registered domain name. It is not available with the Virtual web packages.

Download the support materials described in this tutorial:
Files for the cgi folder:
Files for the search folder:

ACM Systems will create a Catalog within Index Server that will constantly scan and monitor your site for page changes and additions.
This catalog can be seen on your site in FrontPage as a folder by the name of catalog.wci --

Do not delete this folder or the files it contains other wise you will loose the capability to perform searches.

Note: If you have folders on your site you would like NOT to be indexed, contact ACM Systems and request the folder(s) be excluded from the Indexing

Support File Descriptions:

search.idq (Location: cgi folder)
This file contains the query information that will reference the index catalog, it will then pass the results to the search.htx file.
search.htx (Location: cgi folder)
This file produces the html page that will display the results of the search.
index.html (Location: search folder)
This file contains a basic template for the search form. You can copy the code for the form from this template and paste it into the actual page you wish to put the search form into.
is2style.css (Location: search folder)
This is a cascading style sheet file that is linked from the search.htx file. You can specify your font family, style, color, etc. that will be displayed in the search results page.
ixtiphlp.htm (Location: search folder)
If you wish to give your visitors tips as to how to use your search form, this page contains some helpful information that you can link to.

Step 1.
This tutorial will require you to add two folders onto your web site.

Note: if you choose to use different names for these folders you will need to modify the search.htx and the search.idq files.

1. A folder named cgi - This folder will contain the two script files search.idq and search.htx. After you create this folder make sure you edit the properties and check the box to 'Allow Scripts to be run'. To edit the properties, right click on the folder and select 'Properties...'
2. A folder named search - this folder will contain your search form template.

(click to enlarge)

Step 2.
Once you have created the new folders, and downloaded the support files, un-zip the cgi_folder.zip file and place the 2 files search.idq and search.htx into your cgi folder.
Next un-zip and place the 3 files index.html, is2Style.css, and the ixtiphlp.htm, that are in the search_folder.zip file into your search folder.

Step 3.
Edit the search.idq file:
At this time you need to specify the catalog name and location within the search.idq file. This has to be done in order for the query to be preformed on the proper catalog. Contact ACM Systems for the proper information to be inserted as the 'CiCatalog=' parameter.
Open the search.idq file in a text editor such as notepad, Do not use FrontPage or a word processor, you will run the risk of the file being contaminated with unwanted formatting.
Locate the line that contains the 'CiCatalog=' parameter and insert the specifications that you received from ACM Systems.

(click to enlarge)

Step 4.
Placing your search form:
Here is where you put your search form in the page you want it to be in.

Open the index.html file in the search folder then move to the 'HTML' tab
Highlight all the code between the <body></body> tags and copy it.
Do Not include the <body></body> tags.

Open the page you wish to have the search form in and on the 'HTML' tab paste it in the location of the page you want it to be in.

(click to enlarge)

Search Form Code:

<form ACTION="/cgi/search.idq" METHOD="GET">
 <input type="hidden" name="CiScope" value="/">
 <input type="hidden" name="CiMaxRecordsPerPage" value="10">
 <input type="hidden" name="TemplateName" value="search">
 <input type="hidden" name="CiSort" value="rank[d]">
 <input type="hidden" name="HTMLQueryForm" value="/index/index.html">

 <table width="173">
  <tr>
    <td width="134"><font face="Verdana" size"2">
    <b>Search</b></font></td>

    <td width="35"></td>

  </tr>
  <tr>
    <td width="134">
 <input NAME="CiRestriction" SIZE="15" MAXLENGTH="100" VALUE>
    </td>
    <td width="35">
 <input TYPE="SUBMIT" VALUE="Go">
    </td>
  </tr>
  <tr>

   <td width="134"><font face="Verdana" size="1">
   Use<a href="/search/ixtiphlp.htm#FreeTextQueries">
   Free-Text Query</a>.</font> 
   </td>

   <td width="35">
 <input NAME="FreeText" TYPE="CHECKBOX" value="ON"> 
   </td>
  </tr>
 </table>
</form>

Step 5.
This working example shows the search form pasted into a black bordered one row, two column Table, with a link to the search tips page.

Tips for Searching