Display Search Results as Whole Pages Rather than Links to those Pages?

[Dizzy]

A search result page normally displays a descending series of links to files which contain the search word/s.

Instead of displaying the mere links, is there any simple (or even complicated) way to make the search results page display the entire page that the link/s would normally take you to? In other words, instead of displaying a series of links running down the page, the results page would display the entire html content of each relevant file that the links would normally take you to, with the entire contents of each file displayed one below the other in order of relevance or date.

This might sound cumbersome or pointless, but I have a very specific need for this precise function, so any help would be greatly appreciated.

[Ray]

There's no built-in functionality to do this. So any way of doing this would require a fair bit of custom development.

It's not a technically simple thing to do either. The idea of displaying an entire page (let alone 10 pages) within a page can lead to all sorts of problems with scripting, stylesheets, relative links, etc. It would depend heavily on how simple or complicated the pages are (and I don't mean visually -- I mean, technically, the source code and the HTML or JS. A visually simple page may have alot of technical issues depending on many other files).

It would pretty much be impossible as a general user feature. Most web pages out there would be far too intricate to have their pages merged together in such a manner without scripts conflicting. And offering a feature that only works for 20% of customers (without being able to easily warn which users it will work for) deems it impractical.

If you were to implement it, it would probably be done by IFRAMEs for each page (so you can restrict their layout on the results page a bit, and minimize linking problems).

[Dizzy]

Thanks for your advice regarding the likely hurdles. I would like to get this done, however.

You cite differences between scripting formats on the displayed pages as being a huge hurdle, but the purpose I have in mind for this function is not for on-line use, but an off-line/CD database to be used with a single and limited database of files, and therefore the html format and stylesheet of each file could be under control and made uniform. Would it also help if the results were displayed in a separate frame to the search page (which is what I require, in any case)?

As a relative newbie, could I gain enough tuition to learn how to do this from somewhere on the Net, or would I need professional help to develop it? If the latter is the case, is there anyone or any service you could recommend?

Again, your advice is very much appreciated.

[David]

If all the data is already in a database (e.g. SQL) then you would probably be better off just doing the search function as a SQL query and then just displaying the results as you want them.

[Dizzy]

Thanks for the advice. Being a researcher who dabbles lightly in HTML, rather a programmer, I will now attempt to learn something useful about SQL, and whether it suits my needs.

[David]

Or if you need a professional job done, you could employ a professional programmer.

[Dizzy]

That option is sounding the more likely, at this point