Tabbed search available as a service (beta)
The tabbed search application is now available as a beta service offering. The code isn't ready for distribution and other projects have sidelined some cleanup and documentation, but you can give it a try and we welcome all feedback. Three "front ends" are currently in use, and you can search using these front ends from the following sites:
Want to give it a try? We'll setup a front end for you. For a new front end, or if you have comments, suggestions, or other feedback, please write to search@umn.edu. A few quick notes:
- Yes, we know about the character encoding issue.
- The "U of M" tab must always be present for the service, but is last by default.
- Only the standard Web templates are offered for the service; no customizations.
A front end is a collection search result sets (tabs), and breadcrumbs. Each tab utilizes the Google Search Appliance (GSA) and may be configured independently. Configuration options include:
- Site (i.e. tc_oit_1help)
- Collection (i.e. default_collection)
- Additional query string, not visible by users (i.e. inurl:oit.umn.edu)
- Suppression of keymatches
- Suppression of cache links
- Support for additional GET parameters against the GSA (i.e. for meta tag searching)
Tabbed search is offered only as a service during the the beta, but the code will be available for download later. The code requires PHP5. Not every unit has PHP5 available, nor is it common to central, shared hosting, which is why the service is being offered. The service will also ease code updates; when bug fixes need to be deployed, template changes made, or new functionality added, this can be done centrally.