How to have recommend_image automatically use ZOOMIMAGE

[OlivierB]

Hi,

Is there a way to specify that the image used for recommend_image automatically be that of the page's ZOOMIMAGE ?
Very best regards,

Olivier

[Ray]

I'm not quite sure what you are asking for -- "recommend_image" is a div/css class used in the search results to markup the thumbnail image to be displayed for a recommended link.

ZOOMIMAGE is a meta tag specified on a HTML page, which can be indexed during the indexing process to be used as a thumbnail image for the search results.

[OlivierB]

Hi Ray,

Thank you for your response.

The screenshot below might clarify my question.
The images for the "normal" results are all coming in automatically, based on the ZOOMIMAGE of each page.
But this is not working for the "recommended" results, and I had to manually enter each image into the Recommended list.

Very best regards,

Olivier

[Ray]

I understand what you are asking for now, thanks for the detailed explanation.

Yes, for the recommended links, we do not use the ZOOMIMAGE meta tag from those pages. This is because recommended links are not indexed -- the link (title, description, URL, and thumbnail URL) is specified manually by the user of the indexer and saved in the configuration. These links can point to pages outside of your site, or any where you like. They do not have to be a "page" at all, and just have to be a valid URL. Much like an advertisement.

It would not be an easy change to add parsing of ZOOMIMAGE meta tags for recommended links. For one, in Offline Mode, all the other files are found and parsed in your local folder. The Recommended Links are not, and we only have an online URL referenced, so we'd either need an additional entry to point to the offline file, or switch to partial spider indexing, which isn't possible at the moment.

So in short, this is unlikely to change. I hope that makes sense.

[OlivierB]

Thank you, Ray. It makes sense.
I have written a program to scan and parse the HTML files for the ZOOMIMAGE meta tag and append it to the .zcfg file.
I was just hoping to avoid re-inventing the wheel.
Very best regards,
Olivier