Using Index Server with FrontPage 2000

Last month, I showed you how to build a custom Microsoft Index Server catalog for a Web domain; add to the catalog directories that are outside that Web domain and exclude directories that are in the domain; and modify query.asp, a sample search page that comes with Index Server, to search the domain using your new catalog. This month, I conclude this series by showing you how to use an Index Server catalog with Microsoft FrontPage 2000.

Index Server vs. the FrontPage WAIS Search Engine
First, let's review some differences between Index Server and the FrontPage Wide Area Information Server (WAIS) search engine. If you install Index Server on the server machine, FrontPage will try to use Index Server by default, but you must create the catalogs for the virtual domains on the server machine. If you don't create a catalog for each virtual domain, either the Web content author will receive an error or the user will get search results from the wrong Web site. (For details about these errors, see the Microsoft articles "Configuring FrontPage 2000 to Search Using Index Server" at http://support.microsoft.com/support/ kb/articles/q203/7/96.asp and "Search Returns Results From Wrong Web" at http://support.microsoft.com/support/ kb/articles/q214/8/35.asp.) In contrast, the FrontPage WAIS search engine automatically creates and updates a catalog in each FrontPage subweb when it does a Recalculate Hyperlinks operation.

If you've installed Index Server on the server machine and you want to use the FrontPage WAIS search engine on one or more FrontPage-enabled virtual domains, you must change the FrontPage configuration in the Registry (for details, see "Index Server and the FrontPage WAIS Search Engine," June 2000). The virtual root and every subweb in the domain will then use the WAIS search engine. You can't mix Index Server and WAIS in a single domain, but if you have many virtual domains in a server machine, some can use Index Server and others can use WAIS.

Remember that when you use the WAIS search engine, FrontPage creates a separate catalog for each subweb in a virtual domain. So, you can't use one search page to search the entire domain if the virtual domain has subwebs. However, Index Server can search the entire virtual domain, the current Web, or a single directory in the domain. Index Server can also exclude from a search any directory or virtual directory that you added to the catalog.

The WAIS search engine indexes only Web content, .html files, and text files. Index Server can also index Microsoft Office documents, such as from Microsoft Word and Microsoft Excel. In fact, Index Server can index any document for which it has a filter.

Using Index Server with a FrontPage Web Domain
Of course, to use an Index Server catalog with FrontPage 2000, you need to install Index Server on the server machine. Index Server 1.1 comes in the Microsoft Windows NT 4.0 Option Pack, and the documentation is installed with the other Option Pack documentation.

Preparing. Before you begin, back up your server, including the metabase. Then, from the IIS snap-in in Microsoft Management Console (MMC), select a FrontPage-enabled virtual domain. If you create a new virtual domain, start the domain and make sure you've configured the FrontPage Server Extensions for it. (To check the server extensions, right-click the virtual domain in the IIS snap-in and select Task. To configure the FrontPage Server Extensions for the site, select the Configure Server Extensions task and follow the wizard's steps.)

You also need to check the Home Directory tab in the Web domain's Properties dialog box to ensure that you've selected the Index this directory check box. If the check box is cleared and you select it, the Inheritance Overrides dialog box, which Figure 1 shows, will appear. The directories listed in the Child Nodes window are private FrontPage directories. Notice that their names all start with an underscore. FrontPage automatically excludes the listed directories from the index, which saves you a lot of time and trouble. As I explained in "Creating a Catalog and Search Page for a Web Domain," August 2000, setting these exclusions manually in the IIS snap-in is tedious and problematic. If FrontPage didn't automatically exclude the directories, you would have to set the exclusions manually for each Web and subweb.

Using excluded directories and private data. If you store your forms results in a directory you've marked to be indexed, the forms results contents will show up in search results. However, if you don't store the forms results in a readable format, such as HTML or formatted text, users will see messy, unformatted data instead of a nicely formatted presentation.

Being able to exclude directories from the index is handy when you need to protect information from showing up in a search index. For example, I store information from private user-submitted FrontPage forms in the _private directory, thus preventing the user requests from showing up in a search results page. But if you (or the Web content author) want to make your forms results databases searchable, you need to save them in a directory that isn't marked for exclusion. Remember that although Index Server can search many types of documents, WAIS can search only .html and text files. Therefore, you must save your searchable forms text database in HTML or text format if you use WAIS.

When might you want to make the forms results searchable? You'll probably find frequent occasions in which you'd like to be able to search forms results. For example, I recently set up a series of FrontPage discussion groups as self-serve classified ad pages. Because the FrontPage forms processor lets you save forms results to both .html and text files, I can use either Index Server or the WAIS search engine to search the results. Visitors can use the search form to find just the articles or items in the discussion group they're interested in without having to scroll through the entire discussion group—or in this case, reams of unrelated classified ads. To let users search only one part of the Web site—the classified ads—I need to have a search page that searches only the directory I store the discussion forum in. (I show you later how to set up a FrontPage search page for this type of search.) FrontPage 2000 lets you store information that users enter in forms in a Microsoft Access database. If you're using Microsoft Site Server 3.0 or 2.0, you can index the database and let visitors search it. For details, see Tim Huckaby, "Implementing Site Server Search Database Catalogs," July 2000.

Creating your catalog. Before you create your catalogs, prepare the directories in which you want to store the catalogs. You should keep catalogs in their own directories on the server machine, not in subdirectories or virtual subdirectories under the virtual domain.To create a catalog, select the Index Server Manager from the Option Pack program group in your Start menu to open MMC, then run the Ciadmin.msc Index Server Services (ISS) snap-in. (If you need more information about how to create a catalog and how Index Server works, see "The Basics of Index Server," July 2000, and "Creating a Catalog and Search Page for a Web Domain," August 2000.)

Right-click Index Server on Local Machine, and select Stop to stop Index Server. Then, right-click Index Server on Local Machine and select New, Catalog. Follow the steps in the Add Catalog Wizard. Finally, right-click Index Server on Local Machine and select Start to restart Index Server.