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Preferences and Customization

• Introduction
• afeatures.pl
• Generate-Time Options
  • $show_legend
  • $subject_group_mode
• Query-Time Options
  • $graphic_relevance_mode
  • $query_by_example_mode
  • $inline_summaries
  • $summary_mode
  • $summary_link_mode
  • $number_of_summary_sentences
  • $maximum_summary_length
  • $number_of_subject_groups
  • $show_additional_docs_in_grouping
  • $max_docs_to_return
  • $log_searches
  • $maximum_query_time
  • $stem_by_default
  • $index_html_comments
  • Result List Customization
    • $customize_result_list
    • customize_result_list_line
    • customize_grouping_line

Introduction

Perhaps the most important thing to understand about these customizations is that they are of two classes:

• those which affect the generation of new query-results pages (and which will, in the future, be options provided during the page-generation process), and
• those which apply to all query-results pages, regardless of when generated.

• The generation of all new query-results pages. (Previously generated query-results pages will be unaffected by these changes unless re-generated.)
  • legend -- $show_legend
    • whether a legend appears at all
    • if one appears, whether it's at the top or bottom of the page
  • whether a special graphic which enables the regrouping of query results by subject will be added to the page -- $subject_group_mode
• The display of query-results pages at query time. (These changes will affect all query-results pages, regardless of when generated.)
  • the maximum number of documents to return for each (concept-based or query-by-example) query -- $max_docs_to_return
  • automatic summarization
    • whether the '(summary)' link or inline summaries will appear in the results list -- $summary_mode and $inline_summaries
    • if enabled, then on the summary-results page...
      • the maximum number of sentences in the summary -- $number_of_summary_sentences
      • the maximum total length (in characters) of all the sentences in the summary -- $maximum_summary_length
  • for automatic subject grouping (if enabled),
    • the maximum number of groups generated -- $number_of_subject_groups
    • whether to show more than just the top results documents when grouping -- $show_additional_docs_in_grouping
  • whether the relevance-indicating character or graphic in the results list will also serve as a link enabling query-by-example -- $query_by_example_mode
  • whether the relevance indicator will be a graphic (1) or simply a character (0) -- '+' or '-' -- $graphic_relevance_mode
  • what else appears in each line of the results list -- the subroutines customize_result_list_line() and customize_grouping_line()

A description of how to do all this customization follows directly.

afeatures.pl

Generation-Time Options

Remember that any query-results pages generated before modifications to these preferences will not be affected by the modifications. If you wish for these preferences to affect old query-results pages as well, you must regenerate those pages.

$show_legend

• at the bottom of the page (default): $show_legend = 'bottom';
• at the top of the page: $show_legend = 'top';
• or not at all: #$show_legend (commented out)

$subject_group_mode

• $subject_group_mode = 1; -- add "Grouped by Confidence/Subject" graphic.
• $subject_group_mode = 0; -- do not add button.

Query-Time Options

$graphic_relevance_mode

• $graphic_relevance_mode = 1; -- display red (confident) or black (not confident) graphic [default]
• $graphic_relevance_mode = 0; -- display '+' (confident) or '-' (not confident)

$query_by_example_mode

• $query_by_example_mode = 1; -- enabled (default)
• $query_by_example_mode = 0; -- disabled

$inline_summaries

$summary_mode

• $summary_mode = 1; -- summary enabled (default)
• $summary_mode = 0; -- summary disabled

$summary_link_mode

$number_of_summary_sentences

$maximum_summary_length

To set a maximum summary length, set the value of:

$maximum_summary_length

If this variable is unset -- that is, commented out (by preceding it with a '#') --, then no maximum limit is applied. (This is the default.)

$number_of_subject_groups

Default: $number_of_subject_groups = 6;

(Note: Logically, this number should be much less than the number of documents returned from a query. Setting it higher than the number of returned documents will produce the same behavior as setting it equal to the number of returned documents.)

$show_additional_docs_in_grouping

• $show_additional_docs_in_grouping = 1; show additional docs (default), or
• $show_additional_docs_in_grouping = 0; use only original docs

$max_docs_to_return

$log_searches

&ArchitextQuery'directQuery()

$maximum_query_time

$stem_by_default

$index_html_comments

Result List Customization

That perl programming involves changing subroutines which determine the display of the results. Since there are two different types of results -- those for regular queries, and those for group-by-subject queries -- there is a subroutine for each. If "activated", the appropriate subroutine is called for each document in the list, and it specifies what should appear on the line for that document.

$customize_result_list

customize_result_list_line

  sub customize_result_list_line {
      local($collection_name, $file, $doc_root, $relevance_qbe, $score,
            $title, $summary, $original_line) = @_;
      return "$original_line";
  }

• $collection_name is the name of the collection being searched. This is useful if you wish to customize the results of a query differently for different collections.
• $file is the full pathname of the document.
• $doc_root is the pathname of the Web server's document root. This is useful for converting the value of the $file variable to a URL by removing the $doc_root prefix.
• $relevance_qbe is the filename of the appropriate confidence-of-relevance indicator for that document, which also serves as the query-by-example button if the $query_by_example_mode is enabled.
• $score is the document's floating-point relevancy score (maximum, 10.0). [Note that this argument is not passed in the the customize_grouping_line function.]
• $title is a slight misnomer. There are two cases:
  • If the document is HTML and it has a title, then $title is that title.
  • If the document isn't HTML, or it's HTML without a title, then $title is the document's filename.
• If you are not using inline summaries (ie : $inline summaries = 0) then $summary is the text for the summary link according to the following rule (Default: if summarization is enabled, '(summary)'; if disabled, '(empty)'.) otherwise if you are using inline summaries (ie : $inline_summaries = 1) then $summary is the actual summary text for that particular returned document.
• $original_line is the text for the default result line.

You can use the information provided to you to create whatever string you like, then return that value for the result.

customize_grouping_line

By default, this subroutine is defined as follows:

  sub customize_grouping_line {
      local($collection_name, $file, $doc_root, $relevance_qbe,  
            $title, $summary, $original_line) = @_;
      return "$original_line";
  }

Command Line Applications