CGI Script editing

[weberhannes]

First of all: This software is great!
Since we want to use it as CGI Script and are
not experienced with Pearl Programming, we would like
to know how we can change the results page in Layout,
order etc. (e.g. Show the "search took" information on top...)
Is there a way to edit the CGI Script? And if so, how?

Thank you for your fast help...

[sizbut]

Whilst not a full blown programmer I've adapted/modified a few CGI scripts in my time. However when I looked at the Zoom Search CGI script it was hardly recognisable as PERL - I assume it been through some sort of code optimiser.

That forced me to look at the PHP script and that is, with a degree of patience, human readable and adjustable - so if your server supports PHP that might be an option.

Make sure you have saved a copy of the script before you modify it and make sure you modify the one in the ZoomSearch program folder or else your custom version risks getting overwritten.

[weberhannes]

Thanks, I know that with PHP this works. But I need the CGI version due to the amount of websites indexed. Is there no way to do this?
The CGI is unrecognizable as Pearl Script if you

[David]

In fact the Zoom CGI script is not really a script! And it is definitely not Perl. Many people think that CGI is the same as a Perl script, but this not true. CGI is an interface definition between a web server and an external application (Common Gateway Interface) and has no directly link to the Perl language.

The Zoom CGI version is written in C++ and is compiled to a binary executable (to get the most speed). So you will never be able to edit the CGI binary executable. We take the C++ source code and compile it on Windows, Linux and BSD Unix to produce 3 different binary executable files. This means that the search.cgi file is exactly the same as any other Windows or Linux executable. For example you can rename search.cgi to search.exe and run it directly from Windows.

If you want to see the speed difference we get by using a native compiled executable then have a look at this page,
http://www.wrensoft.com/zoom/benchmarks.html
The speed difference is huge. Which means we can index very large sites and still get good search times.

You can edit the PHP, ASP and Javascript versions but not CGI. However in most cases you do not need to edit the script and once you do we will no longer provide support for your custom script.

Having said that, your case might require customisation if you want to move the "search took" string around the page.

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David
Wrensoft

[weberhannes]

Thanks,
its sad that I cant edit the CGI. Nevertheless, is there a way to at least
leave out certain infos within the search results page, such as the "search provided by..." or the "search for" strings?
With the PHP Version this is no problem if you delete parts within the settings. The settings script in CGI is a .zdat File. How can I handle this within the CGI-version.

Thank you for your support.

Johannes

[David]

There should NEVER be any need to edit the settings file directly. At least no reason that we can think of. You risk stuffing it up and causing all manner of strange errors by manually editing it. Every single field in the settings file can be changed in a friendly manner from the Zoom user interface.

You can turn off the display of the time and powered by message from the Zoom configuration window, on the search page tab. There are two check boxes that control these settings.

Otherwise all the strings can be changed by editing the language file. See the "Languages" tab in the Zoom configuration window. This allows you to switch all the result strings from English to German or just change a couple of the strings if requried.

For more details on language files see the users guide,
http://www.wrensoft.com/zoom/usersguide.html

--------
David

[Ray]

You can also use CSS to hide/show certain elements of the search results. For example, the following CSS in your search_template.html will hide the "Search results for: .... " line.

.searchheading { visibility: hidden; }

You can even re-position things on your search page completely with a bit of CSS. More info on using CSS here: http://www.wrensoft.com/zoom/support/css.html