Daffodil:Search Tool

From Wiki

(Redirected from Search Tool)

This page is part of the Daffodil Wiki.
Main Page | User Guide | Programming Guide | Protocol | FAQs

1 The Searchtool
2 Performing a Search
3 The Resultview

The Searchtool

This image shows the search tool of Daffodil. The search tool is divided into three sections. The first section (framed red) is called filter shelf and shows the currently present data sources, which are search for a given query. The second section (framed blue) is the query form section, where four attributes, namely title, author, publication year and freetext can be used to enter a query. The third section (framed green) is a freely editable query field. All entered values from the query form section are directly visualised as boolean query in this field.

One can edit the query with boolean sytax directly here, allowing for more flexibility in query structure.

Screenshot of Searchtool

Performing a Search

If you have entered a query, here "Norbert Fuhr" in the author text area (blue frame, picture before) and hit the search button, the search is performed on all selected digital libraries. The boolean query is presented in the frame below, and can be edited there, if the query form is not sufficient to express your query. A progress tool will open up and show you some information about the state of the search, and how many objects are found in each digital library.

the search tool

The Resultview

When a search is completed, the view presented by the Search Tool changes. An overview of the result is shown, as seen in the picture to the right.

The result view is split in four sections:

the query field
the result list
a section of tabs
a row of action buttons

In the red frame, the original query is repeated. It can be modified directly, and will be processed after hitting search action button (in the lower right corner of the interface).

The green frame shows the found documents in a ranked order by default. It is possible to choose a different sort order from the list of sorting options presented ("Sort By"). Navigation is possible through use of the scrollbar, or by using the step icons at the top of the result list. Double clicking on a result will open the Detail View, which will show more information about the chosen object.

Each entry in the resultlist is preceeded by a bar which gives some indication of the relative retrieval value computed for the result. Every list entry also shows the names of the authors, the title and the publication year of the document, as well as a list of sources the document was found in. All terms matching the query are highlighted in a special color.

Special icons following the author name indicate previous actions taken on a particular document:

a blue folder is seen if a document has already been stored in the Personal Library (PLib)
a crossed out folder marks a document previously stored in the Personal Library, and later removed
an eye reminds you that you have previously requested details about the document

the result view

Extract Buttons

Below the list of results, a row of buttons is found (blue frame) that can be used for extracting frequent authors, journals, conferences and terms from the result. An Attribute Tool will present the result in form of an ordered list of extracted term and the number of occurences within the result documents. The accompanying picture show an examplary result of extracted authors.

List of extracted authors

WebSearch Tabs

Through the tabbed list of document types it is possible to access the result of the WebSearch, and switch between those and the metadata results collected from the digital libraries:

Metadata presents the main result view of Daffodil
G:PDF, G:PS, G:DOC and G:PPT show web links for PDF, PostScript, MS Word and MS Powerpoint documents respectively

This allows the user to combine searches within the metadata from various digital libraries, and the World Wide Web, thus saving time and the inconvience of switching between different applications.

On selection, the corresponding list of results is shows, as seen in the screenshot to the right. Available metadata for these results is sparse, so only the original rank, the document title, and the URL are shown.

results from the WebSearch

Store Result List Entries

There are two ways to store a digital library object in the personal library.

Using drag & drop:Just grab the entry from the result list, drag it to an open view of the personal library, and drop it on the folder you want to store it in.
Using the context menu: A right-click on an entry will open the context menu. From here storing in the personal library can be done by selecting the menu entry for storing the object. The document is stored in the active folder, i.e. the currently selected folder of the personal library.