[Welcome to Web Search This is a Registered Trademark. Web Search copyrights 1994, 1996 and 1997]

Important Announcement!
Web Search would like to announce our new software product which makes it possible for anyone to create the Web Search database WITHOUT using a spreadsheet program.
Available for FREE! with every purchase!

We suggest you keep backups of all your work until you've had a chance to see if you prefer "DataEasy" over your existing spreadsheet program.
You'll note that there are no restrictions on characters such as were experienced with Excel and Works. Quotation marks are still not allowed but DataEasy doesn't recognize them so it's not an issue. Commas are now allowed as it wasn't Web Search that had problems with them, it was the Excel and Works spreadsheet programs. Thanks

How To Pages
FTP Help | Setup | Spreadsheet/Database | Spreadsheet and Header Files | FAQ
| Options | Misc. Stuff (Ideas, Hints, Etc.) | Pull Down Menus (1st in a series)
| "Full Version" Install

Fun With Web Search...
We suggest you have the "basic" version operational first. (The form included with the software)

Important! It has come to our attention than many people are copying and pasting the below listed forms into their home pages to see how they look and work. (You did know you could do that, right?)
Some html editing programs write their own code into the html when you copy and paste usually adding a bunch of unwanted <br> tags. To make these forms look right on YOUR page, simply remove all the <br> tags that were added that don't appear in the examples below.
Of course the best solution is to just use a simple text editing program such as notepad or wordpad to copy and paste the text.

Remember, Web Search will always try to make intelligent (or at least non-destructive) decisions if you don't set up any of these features below. They're strictly optional. But it's nice to know you can control Web Search as much as you want:

See also:

BASIC SEARCHING

In Brief: It's probably not a good idea to search the actual column where the url's or email addresses are located.
As an example, http://www.mindspring.com if it were searched would return results for the following keywords; mind, spring, com and mindspring. Probably not what you were looking for.

Sample Form: 


<FORM ACTION="http://www.web-search.com/cgi-bin/person2.pl">
<INPUT NAME="all">
<INPUT TYPE="submit">
<INPUT TYPE="hidden" NAME="1sp-license" VALUE="websearch">
</FORM>
For a field where the user can type in a term and see if it matches anything in any of the columns of the spreadsheet, do

    INPUT NAME="all"
To search in just column 3, do

    INPUT NAME="col3"
To search in both column 1 and column 3, do

    INPUT NAME="col1col3"
you can extend that as far as you want...:

    INPUT NAME="col1col3col6col14col22"

BASIC "AND/OR" MATCHING

Here are some sample "form" formats you can use with Web Search
Please remember, you'll need to change the "path" to your cgi-bin directory and change the "VALUE" to your code in each example for the form to work with YOUR search engine.
In these examples, Column 1 is the title-Column 2 is the url-Column 3 are the keywords.
Notice the tags used that are linking the URL of the site (column 2) to itself in column 2;
<INPUT TYPE="hidden" NAME="link1" VALUE="2">

Example 1 -- match all columns, choose any/all/phrase

The default is a phrase search. It should only match lines with "photo software disk" in them.
Try the same words with the other options in the "pull down" menu.
Match
Copy and Paste this Code Into your selected page 
<FORM ACTION="http://www.web-search.com/cgi-bin/person2.cgi">
Match <SELECT NAME="allcomp">
<OPTION VALUE=""> the exact phrase
<OPTION VALUE="any"> any of the words
<OPTION VALUE="all"> all of the words
</SELECT>
<INPUT NAME="all">
<INPUT TYPE="hidden" NAME="link1" VALUE="2">
<INPUT TYPE="submit">
<INPUT TYPE="hidden" NAME="1sp-license" VALUE="websearch">
</FORM>
(The next three examples are the same thing, just broken down by "phrase", "any", and "all".)

Example 1a -- all columns, phrase

The default is a phrase search. It should only match lines with "photo software disk" in them.

Copy and Paste this Code Into your selected page 

<FORM ACTION="http://www.web-search.com/cgi-bin/person2.cgi">
<INPUT NAME="all">
<INPUT TYPE="hidden" NAME="link1" VALUE="2">
<INPUT TYPE="submit">
<INPUT TYPE="hidden" NAME="1sp-license" VALUE="websearch">
</FORM>

Example 1b -- all columns, all words

Copy and Paste this Code Into your selected page 
<FORM ACTION="http://www.web-search.com/cgi-bin/person2.cgi">
<INPUT NAME="all">
<INPUT TYPE=hidden NAME="allcomp" VALUE="all">
<INPUT TYPE="hidden" NAME="link1" VALUE="2">
<INPUT TYPE="submit">
<INPUT TYPE="hidden" NAME="1sp-license" VALUE="websearch">
</FORM>

Example 1c -- all columns, any words

Copy and Paste this Code Into your selected page 
<FORM ACTION="http://www.web-search.com/cgi-bin/person2.cgi">
<INPUT NAME="all">
<INPUT TYPE=hidden NAME="allcomp" VALUE="any">
<INPUT TYPE="hidden" NAME="link1" VALUE="2">
<INPUT TYPE="submit">
<INPUT TYPE="hidden" NAME="1sp-license" VALUE="websearch">
</FORM>

Example 2 -- all columns; user chooses and/or

Copy and Paste this Code Into your selected page 
<FORM ACTION="http://www.web-search.com/cgi-bin/person2.cgi">
<INPUT NAME="all">
<INPUT TYPE="hidden" NAME="link1" VALUE="2">
<INPUT TYPE="submit">
<INPUT TYPE="hidden" NAME="1sp-license" VALUE="websearch">
</FORM>

Example 3 -- all columns, user chooses and/or

Copy and Paste this Code Into your selected page 
<FORM ACTION="http://www.web-search.com/cgi-bin/person2.cgi">
<INPUT NAME="all">
<INPUT TYPE="hidden" NAME="link1" VALUE="2">
<INPUT TYPE="submit">
<INPUT TYPE="hidden" NAME="1sp-license" VALUE="websearch">
</FORM>

Example 4 -- col1col3, user chooses phrase/all/any

Match
Just like #1 above, but only searching in columns 1 and 3 Copy and Paste this Code Into your selected page 
<FORM ACTION="http://www.web-search.com/cgi-bin/person2.cgi">
Match <SELECT NAME="comp1col3">
<OPTION VALUE=""> the exact phrase
<OPTION VALUE="any"> any of the words
<OPTION VALUE="all"> all of the words
</SELECT>
<INPUT NAME="col1col3">
<INPUT TYPE="hidden" NAME="link1" VALUE="2">
<INPUT TYPE="submit">
<INPUT TYPE="hidden" NAME="1sp-license" VALUE="websearch">
</FORM>

Example 5 -- col1col3

The default is a phrase search. It should only match lines with "Search Engine" in them, but only searching in columns 1 and 3 Copy and Paste this Code Into your selected page 
<FORM ACTION="http://www.web-search.com/cgi-bin/person2.cgi">
<INPUT NAME="col1col3">
<INPUT TYPE=hidden NAME="comp1col3" VALUE="">
<INPUT TYPE="hidden" NAME="link1" VALUE="2">
<INPUT TYPE="submit">
<INPUT TYPE="hidden" NAME="1sp-license" VALUE="websearch">
</FORM>

Example 6 -- col1col3

This should only match lines with BOTH "photo and software" in them, but only searching in columns 1 and 3 Copy and Paste this Code Into your selected page 
<FORM ACTION="http://www.web-search.com/cgi-bin/person2.cgi">
<INPUT NAME="col1col3">
<INPUT TYPE=hidden NAME="comp1col3" VALUE="all">
<INPUT TYPE="hidden" NAME="link1" VALUE="2">
<INPUT TYPE="submit">
<INPUT TYPE="hidden" NAME="1sp-license" VALUE="websearch">
</FORM>

Example 7 -- col1col3

This should match lines with either "photo or software" in them,
but only searching in columns 1 and 3 Copy and Paste this Code Into your selected page 
<FORM ACTION="http://www.web-search.com/cgi-bin/person2.cgi">
<INPUT NAME="col1col3">
<INPUT TYPE=hidden NAME="comp1col3" VALUE="any">
<INPUT TYPE="hidden" NAME="link1" VALUE="2">
<INPUT TYPE="submit">
<INPUT TYPE="hidden" NAME="1sp-license" VALUE="websearch">
</FORM>

BASIC LINKING

To link the title of a resource in column 1 to its URL in column 3:

 <INPUT TYPE="hidden" NAME="link1" VALUE="3">
You can link a column to itself--for instance, to have a column of URLs in column 3 be hot:

    <INPUT TYPE="hidden" NAME="link3" VALUE="3">

BASIC FORMATTING

1. Which columns show up? or, How do I hide certain columns?

To have the contents of a column show up in the output, just include a column header for that column in the spreadsheet. For instance, consider a searchable hotlist, with the title in column one, the url in column two, and some keywords in column three. When making the spreadsheet, include the title of each column at the top:

 Title:	URL:	Keywords:
Then the format for the results (with the default HTML Tables format) will look something like:

   Title	URL			Keywords

   Yahoo	http://www.yahoo.com	internet, web, search engine
   Web Search	http://www.web-search.com	internet, find, search engine
But you probably don't want those keywords in there. To prevent them from showing up in the output, just remove the column header from the spreadsheet, so the spreadsheet looks like this:

   Title	URL

   Yahoo	http://www.yahoo.com	internet, web, search engine
   Web Search	http://www.web-search.com	internet, find, search engine
The cool part is that the keywords will still be searchable; they just won't show up.

You might not want the column header "Title" in there, either, although you still want the column results (Yahoo, Web-Search) to show up. To accomplish that, replace "Title" with "nohead":


   nohead	URL

   Yahoo	http://www.yahoo.com	internet, web, search engine
   Web Search	http://www.web-search.com	internet, find, search engine
Then your output (not your spreadsheet) will look like:

   		URL

   Yahoo	http://www.yahoo.com
   Web-Search	http://www.web-search.com/

HEADER FILES (custom "your look" html)

You can change the HTML that appears at the top of your search result pages. The name of your search CGI is

    websearch.cgi
and your spreadsheet file is

    websearch.cgi.txt
then just put the new header HTML in a file called

    websearch.cgi.head.txt

   See this text example (Also on Disk 1)

   or how it actually looks!

MORE LINKING

These basic html tags can be used in each individual "cell" in a column.
(Home Page)      http://www.web-search.com/                 
(E-mail Address) mailto:webmaster@web-search.com
(An Image File)  http://www.web-search.com/images/websea.gif
You also have the option of using "mailto:", "ftp://", or whatever, without actually having to add them to each field in a column. So for example, if you have a column 5 full of e-mail addresses, you can do this: Sample address: webmaster@web-search.com

    <INPUT TYPE="hidden" NAME="link5" VALUE="5">
    <INPUT TYPE="hidden" NAME="protocol5" VALUE="mailto:">
This would appear in the output as 
    webmaster@web-search.com but would be hot linked to mailto:webmaster@web-search.com
The protocol format can also be used to add information to a column. For instance, say you have a column 5 full of filenames:
    aniweb.gif
    websea.gif
    ultralk.gif
You could have a URL prepended to these filenames in the output by using the protocol format. For instance 
    <INPUT TYPE="hidden" NAME="link5" VALUE=5>
    <INPUT TYPE="hidden" NAME="protocol5" VALUE="http://www.web-search.com/images/">
would make these appear in the output as 
    aniweb.gif but would be hot linked to http://www.web-search.com/images/aniweb.gif
    websea.gif but would be hot linked to http://www.web-search.com/images/websea.gif
    ultralk.gif but would be hot linked to http://www.web-search.com/images/ultralk.gif
Some advantages of this method: there's less to type into the database, you can change URLs easier, and it will leave the "http://www.web-search.com/images" part out of any searches on column 5.
NOTE:
You won't be able to use this method if you "mix and match" e-mail addresses, home page url's, and image files in the same spreadsheet column. If you have a column devoted to url's, one to e-mail addresses, and yet another to image files this protocol method will work fine.

Warning!
When using the protocol format, you can not link from one column to another. Only the column using the protocol will be affected.

RESET BUTTON

Simply add the following code under the "Submit" code.
<INPUT TYPE="reset" VALUE="Reset">

Example: 


<INPUT TYPE="submit" VALUE="Submit">
<INPUT TYPE="reset" VALUE="Reset">


RESULTS TABLE FORMAT ETC.

Format how the "results" page will look to users.
Try each Search Form to see the "Look". The code for each option is listed below each form.
Try "games" as a test.

Example 1: Plain Text

Match
Copy and Paste this Code Into your selected page 
<FORM ACTION="http://www.web-search.com/cgi-bin/person2.cgi">
Match <SELECT NAME="allcomp">
<OPTION VALUE=""> the exact phrase
<OPTION VALUE="any"> any of the words
<OPTION VALUE="all"> all of the words
</SELECT>
<INPUT NAME="all">
<INPUT TYPE="hidden" NAME="link1" VALUE="2">
<INPUT TYPE="submit">
<INPUT TYPE="hidden" NAME="1sp-license" VALUE="websearch">
</FORM>

Example 2: Table Format

Match
Copy and Paste this Code Into your selected page 
<FORM ACTION="http://www.web-search.com/cgi-bin/person2.cgi">
Match <SELECT NAME="allcomp">
<OPTION VALUE=""> the exact phrase
<OPTION VALUE="any"> any of the words
<OPTION VALUE="all"> all of the words
</SELECT>
<INPUT NAME="all">
<INPUT TYPE="hidden" NAME="link1" VALUE="2">
<INPUT TYPE="submit">
<INPUT TYPE="hidden" NAME="1sp-license" VALUE="websearch">
<input type="hidden" NAME="begin" VALUE="<TR>">
<input type="hidden" NAME="middle" VALUE="none">
<input type="hidden" NAME="end" VALUE="</TR>">
<input type="hidden" NAME="top" VALUE="<TABLE border=5 cellpadding=5>">
<input type="hidden" NAME="bottom" VALUE="</TABLE>">
</FORM>

Example 3: Centered

Match
Copy and Paste this Code Into your selected page 
<FORM ACTION="http://www.web-search.com/cgi-bin/person2.cgi">
Match <SELECT NAME="allcomp">
<OPTION VALUE=""> the exact phrase
<OPTION VALUE="any"> any of the words
<OPTION VALUE="all"> all of the words
</SELECT>
<INPUT NAME="all">
<INPUT TYPE="hidden" NAME="link1" VALUE="2">
<INPUT TYPE="hidden" NAME="snap" VALUE="UL">
<INPUT TYPE="submit">
<INPUT TYPE="hidden" NAME="1sp-license" VALUE="websearch">
<input type="hidden" NAME="begin" VALUE="<DL>">
<input type="hidden" NAME="middle" VALUE="<LI>">
<input type="hidden" NAME="end" VALUE="</DL>">
<input type="hidden" NAME="top" VALUE="<DT>">
<input type="hidden" NAME="bottom" VALUE="">
</FORM>

Example 4: Centered With Line Devider

Match
Copy and Paste this Code Into your selected page 
<FORM ACTION="http://www.web-search.com/cgi-bin/person2.cgi">
Match <SELECT NAME="allcomp">
<OPTION VALUE="any"> any of the words
<OPTION VALUE=""> the exact phrase
<OPTION VALUE="all"> all of the words
</SELECT>
<INPUT NAME="all">
<INPUT TYPE="hidden" NAME="link1" VALUE="2">
<INPUT TYPE="hidden" NAME="snap" VALUE="UL">
<INPUT TYPE="submit">
<INPUT TYPE="hidden" NAME="1sp-license" VALUE="websearch">
<input type="hidden" NAME="begin" VALUE="<DT>">
<input type="hidden" NAME="middle" VALUE="<DD>">
<input type="hidden" NAME="end" VALUE="<HR>">
<input type="hidden" NAME="top" VALUE="<DL>">
<input type="hidden" NAME="bottom" VALUE="</DL>">
</FORM>

Example 5: Centered With Image Devider

Match
Copy and Paste this Code Into your selected page 
<FORM ACTION="http://www.web-search.com/cgi-bin/person2.cgi">
Match <SELECT NAME="allcomp">
<OPTION VALUE="any"> any of the words
<OPTION VALUE=""> the exact phrase
<OPTION VALUE="all"> all of the words
</SELECT>
<INPUT NAME="all">
<INPUT TYPE="hidden" NAME="link1" VALUE="2">
<INPUT TYPE="hidden" NAME="snap" VALUE="UL">
<INPUT TYPE="submit">
<INPUT TYPE="hidden" NAME="1sp-license" VALUE="websearch">
<input type="hidden" NAME="begin" VALUE="<DT>">
<input type="hidden" NAME="middle" VALUE="<DD>">
<input type="hidden" NAME="end" VALUE="<BR><IMG SRC=http://www.web-search.com/rain_lin.gif>">
<input type="hidden" NAME="top" VALUE="<DL>">
<input type="hidden" NAME="bottom" VALUE="</DL>">
</FORM>

Web-Search Copyright © 1996, Web-Search.Com Inc. All rights reserved.