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onCue search wizard

add links to internet searches and services

This wizard constructs a Qbit that links to an existing Internet search page, either your own or someone else's. The method will not work with every search service - some require a login, for example; others use incompatible methods. These more complex pages may need Qbits written in Java. However, the good news is that we have found that most web search engines can be accessed from onCue with this simple mechanism - in fact, most of the ones you see in onCue are!

For example, www.hcibook.com/hcibook/search.html is a typical search engine front page. It has a text entry area and a button marked 'search'. You can get onCue to look up words automatically in search engines like this, or to access other web-based services with this type of front-end.

If you want to experiment before trying your own Qbit, just copy the example text below each text box.

step 1 - open a second web browser window

You will need to navigate to your chosen search engine and do a search on it. It will probably be easiest to open a new window to do this. Make sure you resize it and position it so you can see this window as well! Either use your browser's File > New > Window option or click here for a new window.

step 2 - show the current URL in the new web browser window

Is the current page URL visible at the top of the new web browser window (called 'Address' in Microsoft Internet Explorer and 'Location' in Netscape Navigator)?

If not, turn this feature on:

Netscape: View > Show > Location Toolbar
IE: View > Toolbars > Address Bar

(The exact form may be different in your browser.) Now you can see where your browser is going.

step 3 - choose the search page

Navigate to your chosen search page, either on your own site or elsewhere, in the second browser window.

e.g. http://www.hcibook.com/hcibook/search.html

step 4 - choose a search term

You need to choose some words as an example search for your search engine. These need to be easily identifiable, so the wizard can recognise them later, but they don't need to be meaningful. Don't include any punctuation or other 'funny' characters (+-£< etc.), just letters, digits and spaces. We suggest typing 'XXXX YYYY', but anything will do so long as it is very recognisable.

Type your selected words here then type or copy them into the search engine's search box.


e.g. XXXX YYYY

step 5- do the search

Now press 'search' (or whatever the site search button is called).

step 6 - find the search results URL using the web browser

Wait for the search results to come back and then look at the URL at the top of the page. The hcibook.com search has the following URL:

        http://www.hcibook.com/hcibook/search/dosearch.cgi?query=XXXX+YYYY

Typically it will have a question mark (?) somewhere in it and one or more name=value pairs separated by ampersands (&). One of these should have your search text (slightly modified) as the 'value' part. In the example above 'query=XXXX+YYYY '.

Copy this result URL and paste it here:


e.g. http://www.hcibook.com/hcibook/search/dosearch.cgi?query=XXXX+YYYY

If the URL doesn't seem to have your text in it (and they are sometimes quite long), look at 'another way to find a search URL' below.

step 6- choose an icon

You will need to find a GIF or JPEG image (just as used in a web site) to appear as an icon in the onCue window when your keywords are selected. The size of icon needed is 32x32 pixels. Other-sized images will be scaled to fit the space, but it is better to do this beforehand if you can.

Remember that this icon is what you will see in the onCue window - make it something memorable!

Is there some image or part of an image on the site that you can use? Perhaps you can design your own with a web image creation program such as Macromedia Fireworks, Xara Webster or one of the shareware tools. Use the colours and style of the site if they are distinctive. Alternatively look for relevant clip-art on the web.

Put the URL (or file URL) of the image you would like to represent the search here:


e.g. http://www.hcibook.com/hcibook/images/eye-icon.gif

If the image is a web image you will also need to download the image onto your machine.

rat gifThe eye on hcibook.com is quite distinctive. We've already made it into an icon that you can use in this example. Right-click on the image and choose Save image as... or Save picture as... from the drop-down menu. Save the image somewhere on your hard disk, but not in the aQtive folder at this stage. Name the file eye-icon.gif

step 7- describe your Qbit

You need to think up a name and various descriptions of your Qbit for onCue to use for tooltips etc.

Unless you understand XML and its conventions, do not use any special characters such as <>=";& in your descriptions.

file name
a filename where your XML Qbit will be stored. It must finish with .xml

example: hcibook.xml
your name
your own name

example: Alan Dix
Qbit name
the name you would like to call your Qbit - this is used in several places, including the name at the top of the tooltip.

example: HCI Book Search
help
Some useful help text for anyone using your Qbit. This will appear as the second line of the tooltip associated with your icon in onCue and as the tooltip for your icon in the onCue Qbit preferences.

example: Search for references to this topic in the HCI book
label
A few words to appear in the dropdown menu from your icon in onCue.

example: search the HCI book

step 8 - make the XML file

Check the details above and then press

 

another way to find a search URL

If you couldn't get the right URL to work at step 4, there are several possible reasons:

  • The search engine uses the "HTTP POST method" - this means the information is not sent as part of the URL, but separately. (To verify this, you can view the page source of the original search page to see if the FORM has the attribute METHOD=POST.) Unfortunately this version of onCue XML Qbits does not support the POST method, but we will do so in future versions. Remember to register as a developer to be kept informed of updates and new versions.
  • The search engine relies on cookies or other means to trace sessions and refuses to serve you if you haven't followed its own route through its site. Again, there is nothing you can do about this in this version of onCue XML Qbits.
  • The search engine goes through one or more stages of redirection so that the URL you see is not the original one sent by the search page. You can do something about this, but you do need to be reasonably proficient at HTML. Go to the original search page (the one where you type text, not the result page). Look in the source for the FORM tag that includes the search text box. Using the ACTION attribute of the FORM tag and the various input fields (including hidden fields), try to reconstruct the URL the FORM will return when the submit button is pressed.


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