WebSphere

 

Portal Express, Version 6.0
Operating systems: i5/OS, Linux, Windows

 

Portlets for working with Search

This topic gives an overview of the portal search portlets.

The portal provides the following portlets related to Search:

They are briefly described in the following sections.

For more details about enhancements to the search portlets for IBM® WebSphere® Portal Express Version 6.0, refer to What is new in Portal Search for this version of portal.

 

Overview of Portal Search portlets

The following portlets are all installed and deployed as part of the default portal installation:

For use by administrators: Manage Search
For end users: Search Center

If you want to use the other search-related portlets in the portal, you have to install them and configure them according to your requirements:

For use by administrators: The Taxonomy Manager and Taxonomy Viewer portlets are not installed as part of the portal installation. You need to install and deploy them.
For end users: The Search and Browse portlet is installed, but you need to deploy it.

Here is an overview of the Portal Search administration and end user portlets:

Administration portlets Installation status
Manage Search Installed and deployed
Taxonomy Manager and Viewer Not installed and not deployed

End user portlets Installation status
Search Center Installed and deployed
Search and Browse Installed, but not deployed

An additional section describes How the two end user portlets Search Center and Search and Browse relate to each other.

To enhance your possibilities of working with search, you can install additional portlets related to Portal Search and apply special configurations.

The Portal Search portlets are not compatible with WSRP, as some additional and more advanced WebSphere Portal Express concepts and features are not reflected by the current WSRP standard yet. Therefore the Portal Search portlets cannot be provided as WSRP services.

 

Portal Search portlets are not compatible with WSRP

The Portal Search portlets cannot be provided as WSRP services, as some additional and more advanced WebSphere Portal Express concepts and features are not reflected by the current WSRP standard yet. This includes the Portal Search portlets Manage Search, Taxonomy Manager, Search and Browse, and the Search Center portlets.

 

Search administration portlet Manage Search

Manage Search is the Portal Search administration portlet. It has three main sections:

You can use the Manage Search portlet to perform the following administrative tasks:

  1. Manage search services. You can use the search services that are provided with portal, or you can add one or more search services to Portal Search. For example, this is required in scenarios where you set up remote search or the portal is set up in a cluster.

  2. Manage search collections. You can define one or more search collections for a search service.

  3. Manage the content sources of search collections. You can combine content sources of different types in one search collection.

  4. Perform administrative tasks required as preparatory steps for the search feature, such as indexing.

  5. Manage search scopes. You can define search scopes to limit search results to specific content locations and specific document types. This enables users to target their searches better.

  6. Manage custom links. You can add custom links with Web link shortcuts to search locations. This enables users to do direct searches to popular Web search engines, such as Google or Yahoo!

  7. Search and browse a search collection. Manage Search provides a user interface just like the Search and Browse portlet for search by end users, but with administrative tasks added. For example, you can edit documents, or you can select documents that you do not want to make available to users for search and delete them.

For detailed information about how to use the Manage Search portlet, refer to the portlet help. Depending on your requirements, you might have to perform other administrative tasks for Portal Search. For example, you can prepare security for Portal Search, or configure remote search or search in a portal cluster. For more information about the Manage Search portlet and other administrative tasks related to search, refer to the following topics.

 

Search Center portlet for search by end users

The Search Center portlet provides a central starting point to all searchable content sources made available to the Portal. Users can use the Search Center to search documents and content. The default search scope is All Sources, which searches through all search collections that are available to the user. You can allow more focused searches by providing additional search scopes. For more information about search scopes refer to Managing search scopes and custom links.

The Search Center portlet is installed as part of the default portal installation. Note that it is deployed and placed on a hidden portal page. The portal takes users to the Search Center when they enter a search using the portal Search Box.

By default both the Search Center portlet and the Search box are available only to authenticated users, that is for users who have logged on with a user ID and password. Anonymous users, that is users who access the portal without logging in, cannot use the Search Center or the search box. For more information about how to use the search portlets on anonymous pages refer to Enabling anonymous users to search public pages of the portal.

For more details about the Search Center portlet, refer to the following information:

 

Search and Browse portlet for search by end users

Portal users can use the Search and Browse portlet for more advanced searches. Each separate search collection requires a separate copy of the Search and Browse portlet. For users to be able to use this portlet, you have to make it available in the portal.

Information for users about how to use this portlet is provided by the portlet help.

Before portal users can use the Search and Browse portlet, perform the following tasks for preparation:

 

How the two end user portlets Search Center and Search and Browse relate to each other

The Search Center portlet provides the starting point for basic search by users. Users can access it by the Search box. You can configure it to cover multiple search collections and to have scopes for more focused searches. When using the Search Center portlet, users can select scopes to focus their searches.

Users can use the Search and Browse portlet for more advanced searches. For example, they can refine their search by restricting it to specific document types, or by searching in the document fields. The Search and Browse portlet is used to search one search collection. You need to create one copy of the portlet for each individual search collection and then deploy it and configure it accordingly.

 

Search administration portlet Taxonomy Manager

TheWebSphere Portal Express Taxonomy Manager portlet helps you view and manage the predefined taxonomy. You can use it to perform a wide range of administrative tasks on the categories that constitute the taxonomy. For more information about what you can do with this portlet, see Taxonomy Manager and the sections following that.

If you want to view or edit the predefined taxonomy, you need to install and deploy the Taxonomy Manager portlet. Install the TaxonomyEditor.war file. For details about how to do this, refer to Configuring the Taxonomy Manager portlet.

For information about how to use these portlets, refer to the portlet help.

 

Parent topic:

Portal Search

 

Related tasks
Working with the search portlets