There are 2 major ways to distribute AFSearch. You may either setup AFSearch in a LAN environment for all users to access, or distribute AFSearch with the index files on a CD-ROM.
The latter option is particularly useful for CD-ROM publishers and content distributors.
AFSearch has full relative path support. You can move the AFSearch directory anywhere you want, as long as the contents of the folder are unchanged.
Follow these steps to incorporate AFSearch into a LAN environment:
- Share a folder on the server for storing the index.
- Find the shared Index Folder using the Network Neighborhood and the full path (e.g. //SERVER_NAME/FOLDERNAME, instead of a local reference like C:\INDEX).
- When indexing folders, use the full LAN name again (so that it can be accessed by all users).
- After the indexing process is complete, copy afsearch.exe, index.ini, and index.des to all user machines.
- When users execute afsearch.exe, Index.ini will automatically use the Index Folder located on the correct LAN path.
To use AFSearch on CD-ROM, follow this procedure:
- First, create the index file on the local hard disk drive. Also define your header, footer, and create all necessary frame files if needed
- Copy the entire directory of AFSearch to the CD-ROM, including all sub-directories
- Copy all the document and index directories to the CD-ROM, the relative path of those directories to AFSearch must stay the same.
- As long as all files (including the AFSearch files afsearch.exe, index.ini, and index.des), and the directories in the index are duplicated onto the CD-ROM (relative path supported), users can search directly from the CD-ROM.
- AFSearch will automatically treat the CD-ROM as the hard drive where it originally built the index.
- Be sure to copy any custom frame directories if you wish to display the search results within HTML frames, or need to refer to some external files.
Integration using LocalHost Mode
If you wish to create a searchable index on your CD-ROM or e-book publication, AFSearch has a powerful LocalHost feature that allows it to seamlessly function as a powerful search engine.
AFSearch functions as a local cgi-bin program that allows your users to search the contents that you specify on your publication. For details of implmentation, please click here
For example, if you are publishing an e-book and would like your readers to be able to search for specific words or phrases, you can use AFSearch to accomplish this goal quickly. AFSearch can be easily integrated into your next CD-ROM based technical manual, encyclopedias, and other electronic media.