Legacy Document
Important: The information in this document is obsolete and should not be used for new development.
Important: The information in this document is obsolete and should not be used for new development.
Specifying "Look For" Help
You can specify the text that appears above the search phrase entry box in the Full Access window and the search string using the <Look For Instruction> and <Look For String> commands. You can also specify text instructing the user to click the Search button and to select a topic using the <Look For Search Btn Instruction> and <Look For Results Instruction> commands.You can use the <Ignore>, <Exception>, and <Synonym> commands to control how Apple Guide searches your index terms when the user directs it to. When the user enters text in the search phrase entry box and then clicks Search, Apple Guide searches your index terms for a matching entry. You can optionally provide a list of words that Apple Guide should ignore (remove from the user's entered text string) when searching, a list of words that Apple Guide should not stem, and a list of words that are synonymous with another word.
In general, Apple Guide first
If Apple Guide does not find the phrase in the synonym list, then Apple Guide
- removes from the string words that are specified in the ignore list.
- stems the remaining words, except for words on the exception list.
- searches the list of synonyms for the parsed phrase and, if it is found, replaces it with the equivalent index term and searches the index for this phrase. If it finds the phrase in the index, Apple Guide displays the topics associated with the matched index term.
For example, consider the phrase "How do I view files?"
- searches the list of synonyms again, this time for each word in the parsed phrase. If it finds a word on the synonym list, it replaces the synonym with its equivalent index term.
- searches the index for the entire phrase (with synonyms for individual words replaced by their equivalent index term). If it finds this phrase in the index, Apple Guide displays the topics associated with the index term.
- searches for each word in the list of index terms. If Apple Guide finds a matching index term for more than one word in the phrase, Apple Guide intersects the results and displays any topics that are common to all words in the phrase.
"How do I view files?" Original phrase entered by user "view files" Apple Guide removes words on ignore list (assuming "how", "do", and "I" are on ignore list) "view file" Apple Guide stems words (does not stem words on exception list) "view file" Apple Guide looks for phrase in synonym list and replaces with its index term if found (in this case, "view file" is not in the synonym list) If the phrase is found in the synonym list, Apple Guide looks in the index for a matching index term and displays the topics associated with the phrase.
If the phrase is not found in the synonym list, Apple Guide searches again.
"view" "file" Apple Guide looks for synonyms "open" "file" Apple Guide replaces each word with its index term if the word is a synonym (assuming "view" is a synonym for "open") "open file" Apple Guide looks for "open file" in list of index terms; if it doesn't find this term, Apple Guide continues searching "open" Apple Guide looks for "open" in list of index terms "file" Apple Guide looks for "file" in list of index terms If more than one word has a matching index term, Apple Guide displays the intersection of topics (if any). If Apple Guide finds a match for only one word, it displays a message indicating that it couldn't find an intersection for the word that didn't match and instructs the user to narrow the search phrase.
Subtopics
- <Look For Instruction>
- <Look For String>
- <Look For Search Btn Instruction>
- <Look For Results Instruction>
- <Ignore>
- <Exception>
- <Synonym>