NatSearch

Search facility for the NatSkin.

Description

NatSearch unifies the Jump & Search boxes known from the standard distribution. It uses one input field to either jump to a topic or perform a query. You can even use it as a quick way to create and edit new topic by entering e:NewTopic into the input field.

NatSearch is heavily inspired by the PhotonSearch by Esteban Manchado Velázquez.

Usage

NatSearch basically first tries to find the named topic and jumps to it if it exists. If not a combined topic+content search is started. If the topic matches a "web.topic" pattern then the topic is searched in the given web. If the topic does not exist in this web the following topic+content search will be conducted in the web. That is, you can search for content in a given web using a "web.keyword" pattern.

The search string may be prefixed with a set of options that are separated from the rest of the search string with a colon(:). Known options are:

Option	Description
e(dit)	edit the named topic; note, that this does not perform any search operation
n(new)	same as e but create a new topic, the named topic must not exist
g	global search (default is local)
l	local search
k	do a keyword match

A search string may consist of a list of terms that are retrieved. If a term shall contain spaces it can be surrounded by double quotes. Each term may be preceded with a minus (-) to exclude this term from the hit set.

Examples

Search	Description
WikiUsers	if the current web is the Main go to the WikiUsers
g:WikiUsers	list all topics in all webs whose name match "WikiUsers"
g:copyright -webpref	list all topics that contain the word "copyright" but not "webpref"
g:"Good morning" -natskin	list all topics that contain the term "Good morning" but not "natskin"
e:Sandbox.TestTopic411	edit Sandbox.TestTopic411
System.graphics	search for "graphics" in the System web

Configuration

NatSearch can be restricted to certain webs and topics by setting WebPreferences. Besides the NOSEARCHALL feature of every web that excludes a web from search the following variables restrict the hit set:

Name	Description
NATSEARCHINCLUDEWEB	a regular expression that must match webs to be considered
NATSEARCHEXCLUDEWEB	a regular expression that must not match a web
NATSEARCHINCLUDETOPIC	a regular expression that must match a topic in the hit set
NATSEARCHEXCLUDETOPIC	a regular expression that excludes a topic from the hit set
NATSEARCHGLOBAL	'on' searches in all public webs, 'off' restricts search to the current web (default), same as the g option
NATSEARCHKEYWORDS	'on' searches for full words only, ' off' tries to match substrings also (default)
NATSEARCHLIMIT	limits the number of topics to show, defaults to all
NATSEARCHIGNORECASE	'on' or 'off', the default is case insensitive
NATSEARCHTEMPLATE	configure application-specific search templates topic

The WebPreferences variable NATSEARCHTEMPLATE can be set to a template topic that is used instead of the skin's search template. This can be used in WikiApplications to define a customized look of search results.