Search Center


The Search Center portlet enables users to perform a full-text search of portal pages, document libraries, search collections, and any additional content sources specified by an administrator. Search helps people find text in Portal content sources as well as in other sources an administrator can specify.

 

Using the Search Center portlet

Search Center features are as follows:

  • Full-text search capability that checks the index for specific words contained in the queried text, and returns a list of matches, the most relevant items appearing at the top of the list.
  • Relevance ranking that evaluates search terms based on their placement in a document's contents or its meta-data. Once the search engine finds the matches, it ranks them in an order most relevant to the query.

Search Center relies on a full-text search engine developed by IBM that is written entirely in Java(TM) and tailored to small to midsize data collections. This search engine sifts through the information in the index in search of pages and documents that match the queries users submit. The index consists of tables that contain information about content. If changes are made to content, the information in the index will not be updated until its next scheduled refresh. Search indexes are stored in the content publishing component of WebSphere Portal Server.

 

Test assumptions

The Search Center portlet has been tested on and is compatible with all supported WebSphere Portal platforms, as listed in Supported hardware and software.

 

Deployment/Installation

This portlet is installed automatically as part of WebSphere Portal installation. The Search Center does not have to be deployed on a portal page to be available to users. Users are taken to the Search Center when they enter a search query into the search box.

Note: This portlet is not supported as a remote WSRP service.

 

Client requirements

This portlet supports browsers and devices capable of rendering HTML markup. The following table provides detailed information.

Minimum requirements for HTML
Markup level
HTML 4.0 Transitional
Java applet
None
JavaScript
Yes
<iframe>
No
Style sheets
Portal styles only
Software
This portlet has been tested on the following browsers:
Internet Explorer V5.5 and 6.0
Mozilla 1.31 and higher
Accessibility
Yes

 

Server requirements

There are no special server requirements other than Websphere Portal server 5.1.

 

Configure Search Center

Search Center requires minimal administrative upkeep, but additional configuration is necessary to enable searching of content such as external or internal Web sites through the Configure mode of the Search Center. See the online help in the Configure mode of the Search Center for more information on specifying internal and external Web sites as search sources. To be included in a Search Center search, Portal content needs to be registered with the Index Catalog.

  • Select Include in Search Center found in the Configure mode of the Document Library you want to be searchable. See the online help in the portlet's Configure mode for more information.
  • Select Register Collection in the Manage Search Collection portlet to make a particular collection searchable. See the online help in Configure mode of the portlet for more information.

 

SearchCenter.properties

To change any of the following search-related default values, open the SearchCenter.properties file located in the $WAS_HOME\properties folder.

  • usp.cache.resultcount=100: Specifies the default value for the maximum number of results returned per query.
  • federate.query.timeout=180 (seconds): Controls how long search attempts to find matches to the search query across multiple data sources before stopping the search and returning partial results.

 

See also


Home | Support | Terms of use | Feedback

 

WebSphere is a trademark of the IBM Corporation in the United States, other countries, or both.

 

IBM is a trademark of the IBM Corporation in the United States, other countries, or both.