4.10.1 Using a Web search service

BSCW helps you to submit queries to Web search engines. At the moment, BSCW lets you access the search services AltaVista, Excite, Infoseek and Lycos. AltaVista additionally lets you choose to perform a 'simple' or an 'advanced' search.

• Bring up the form for specifying and submitting a query:
  • Click    on the top button bar.
  • Click   on the button bar of the form, if you last performed a BSCW Search or a User Search.

  The large icon indicates the search engine that this query will be submitted to.

  • If necessary, select a different search engine from the menu in the Change search engine section of the form and
  • click

    to bring up the 'WWW Search' form for that particular search service.

    Or

  • Click    on the top button bar

  to bring up the 'New Search' form.

  • Enter the name of the new Search Result object and
  • choose your preferred search engine from the list below Search Engine:
  • Click

    to bring up the '<Name of Search Result object>' form for specifying and submitting your query to the search engine chosen.

• Enter the query terms in the field below

  Search the Web for ...

• Fill in the other fields as appropriate.

If you need assistance for specifying your query,

• Click

  to go to the 'Help' pages of the search engine.

• Click

  to submit your query to the search engine.

BSCW will display the result (= list of hits) returned by the search engine in a page that resembles a Folder page with URL objects. By default the list is sorted by the relevance ranking provided by the search engine.

• Click the [By name] or the [By location] button

to re-display the list in different sort orders.

Immediately below the icon of the search service, BSCW displays your query as a link to the original results page of the search engine. Use this link if you want to work directly with the search engine, e. g. to redefine your query.

Special actions in the Search Result page

 

copies the selected entries (links) as URL objects to your Bag. For a single entry [Copy] on its [Action] bar does the same.

 

checks the validity (accessibility) of the URLs of the selected entries. For a single entry [Verify] on its [Action] bar does the same.

 

collects additional hits from the search engine and appends them to the entries in the Search Result page.

 

submits the query again as originally specified, to update the Search Result object.

  (in the page of a persistent Search Result object)
  (in the page of your personal Search Result object)

brings up the search form again and lets you modify the query, e. g. to narrow the scope of the search.

Note:

The Web search engines occasionally modify the format of their lists of 'hits'. As a consequence, the BSCW server software may have to be modified to handle the new format.

If you notice that a Web search via BSCW does no longer produce the expected results, please inform your BSCW administrator. She or he should contact OrbiTeam about a software patch.

If this problem occurs in GMD's public BSCW Service, please send an email an bscw@gmd.de.