The Search Assistant form is helpful when you are unfamiliar with the data in a site database and need ideas on what search values to enter on the Search form. It displays index terms for database fields that have an index associated with them. Just fill out the form and click the OK button. The system will then display immediately below the form, all the terms from the selected list. You can click on any term in the list to make the system retrieve all the documents that contain this term in the specified field (the one that appears in the Field box).
This section describes the following:
If you are new to the BASIS WEBserver and would like more information about it, or if you'd like to see the table of contents for the entire document, see Introducing the BASIS WEBserver.
The Search Assistant form has three components: a List Type droplist box, a Field droplist box, and a Terms box. Each of these components is described in the following subsections. The display area is also described in the following subsections. The OK button retrieves the specified terms. The Clear button removes any existing text from the Terms box.
Not all fields have an index associated with them. Therefore, only the relevent fields will appear in the Field droplist box on the form. Select the desired field from the droplist. When the form initially appears, the Field box contains the name of the default indexed field.
If you want to display all the terms in the index, leave the Terms box blank and click OK. (The Clear button removes any existing text from the Terms box.) If you want to display a specific portion of a list or find a specific word in a list, then enter a search value in the Terms box. For instance, if you want to find the word "forest" in the list, you can simply enter it in the Terms box and click OK.
The following are the possible types of values you can enter in the Terms box and some examples of each:
IMPORTANT: If you are retrieving terms from the index of a numeric field, you cannot specify a character pattern as the term, except a single asterisk (*). For example, you can specify *, but not 3*.
For more details on each type of term value, see the More on Search Values section. The criteria values (shown above) for the Search Assistant form follow the same rules as the search values of the same name for the Search form (which are documented in the "More on Search Values section").
The display area below the form shows the terms from the index for the specified field. When the Search Assistant form initially appears, this display area contains the terms from the index of the default field whose name occupies the Field box. You can click on any term in any list to make the system retrieve all the documents that contain this term in the specified field.
documents------occurrences------term
where
For example:
Documents-------Occurrences-------Terms
The buttons that are highlighted on the toolbar can be used from the Search Assistant form and are explained below. Those not highlighted are inactive and therefore are not described in this section.