Customizing SiteSurfer Applet Tags

The SiteSurfer applet is highly customizable via parameters that may be embedded into the <APPLET> tag of the hosting HTML page. The basic body of the SiteSurfer <APPLET> body looks like this:

<APPLET ARCHIVE="sitesurf.jar" CODE=SiteSurfer.class WIDTH=140 HEIGHT=45>
<PARAM NAME="ANAME" VALUE="AVALUE">
<PARAM NAME="BNAME" VALUE="BVALUE">
...
...
</APPLET>

Each <PARAM> tag has a NAME and VALUE attribute. Careful use of the <PARAM> tag will give you a great deal of flexibility for setting the appearance, functionality, and behavior of the SiteSurfer applet. If sample page generation is turned on, HTML files exibiting most of these parameters will be generated along with the index, and these pages may be customized to your liking for integration into your web site.

The following list defines each <PARAM> name, the possible values, and the default value. Every name and every value is case sensitive, and they are always UPPERCASE letters. Under most circumstances it is not necessary to customize every available option, as the default values will usually suffice.

• SHOWVIEWS

  This is a comma-separated list of views to display, and it defaults to all views enabled when the applet was generated by the SiteSurfer Builder. It may be used to prevent display of a view that would be shown by default. Values:

  1. QUERYVIEW
  2. MAPVIEW
  3. INDEXVIEW

• INITIALVIEW

  This is the first view to show if more than one are loaded. By default the view on the first tab is shown; this is usually the query view. Values:

  1. QUERYVIEW
  2. MAPVIEW
  3. INDEXVIEW

• DISPLAYTYPE

  This is the display behavior of the applet in the HTML page. The SiteSurfer applet may be embedded directly into a page, or displayed in it's own window frame that is activated by clicking a button. It defaults to the EMBEDDED type. Values:

  1. EMBEDDED
  2. WINDOWED

• RESULTSTYPE

  This is the display behavior of the results list for a search. By default the results list is displayed below the query view, but if this value is set to WINDOWED, the list will be displayed in a new window frame. Values:

  1. EMBEDDED
  2. WINDOWED

• BUTTONTITLE

  If the DISPLAYTYPE parameter is set to BUTTON, the value of this parameter sets the text of the button that activates the applet. By default it displays a graphical logo instead of text.

• WINDOWHEIGHT and WINDOWWIDTH

  If the DISPLAYTYPE or RESULTSTYPE parameter is set to WINDOWED, the values of these parameters are the height and width, respectively, in pixels for the window frame. The default dimensions are 400 width by 300 height.

• WINDOWTITLE

  If the DISPLAYTYPE or RESULTSTYPE parameter is set to BUTTON, the value of this parameter sets the title of the window frame that displays the applet.

• BACKGROUND

  This is a comma-separated Red-Green-Blue value of the background color to use for the applet. Each component must be between 0 and 255. For example, <PARAM NAME="BACKGROUND" VALUE="255,0,0"> will give a red background. The default depends on the browser; Internet Explorer usually has a light grey background, while Netscape has a white background.

• DOCUMENTFRAME

  The value of this parameter is the name of the frame in which to display documents. The default value is "SiteSurferDoc", which directs the browser to display a document in a new browser window named SiteSurferDoc.

• HELPURL

  If this parameter is specified, a Help button will be added to the applet's query view. The value of this parameter is the URL address to display when the Help button is clicked. By default, no help is available.

• HELPFRAME

  If the HELPURL parameter is used, he value of this parameter is the name of the frame in which to display the help file. The default value is "_self", which directs the browser to display the help in the same frame as the applet.

• RESULTSHEADERS, INDEXHEADERS, and MAPHEADERS

  These parameters specify for the query view, alphabetical site index, and site map, respectively, the fields to display for each document. The value is a comma-separated list of fields names. Values:

  1. RANK (query view only)
  2. TITLE
  3. ADDRESS
  4. SIZE
  5. MODIFIED

• MAXRESULTS

  The value of this attribute is an integer that sets the maximum number of pages to display in the results list for the query view. If the number of documents found for a given query is greater than this maximum, then only the highest-ranking documents within the limit are displayed. The default maximum is 150.

• SHOWRESULTSBUTTONS and SHOWINDEXBUTTONS

  These parameters have boolean values specifying whether to use buttons or labels as the headers for each column of the query results list and the alphabetical site index. If the value is TRUE, the list has buttons; clicking on a button sorts the list in ascending order with respect to that column. Successively clicking a button inverts the order of the list. Values:

  1. TRUE
  2. FALSE

• INDEXLOCATION, INDEXLOCATION2, INDEXLOCATION3, etc.

  By default, the SiteSurfer applet will look for the index files (index1.jar and index2.jar) in the same directory as the applet's HTML file. This may be overridden to specify a different directory, or multiple directories where index files should be loaded. SiteSurfer can thus support multiple document collections inside a single applet instance. Each location must be a unique directory on the site; indexes cannot share the same directory. The value for each INDEXLOCATIONn parameter is a URL for the containing directory. The value may be blank to specify the current directory (e.g., VALUE=""), relative to specify a subdirectory (e.g., VALUE="MYINDEXES") of the directory containing the applet's HTML file, or absolute to point to any directory on the web site (e.g., VALUE="/DOCS/MYINDEXES").

• INDEXNAME, INDEXNAME2, INDEXNAME3, etc.

  For each INDEXLOCATIONn value above, the corresponding INDEXNAMEn parameter assigns a name that will be used to reference that collection in the applet. By default, each INDEXLOCATIONn parameter will have a name assigned with the form "Site n".

• ENABLEINTERNET

  SiteSurfer displays a logo button that when clicked loads a dialog about SiteSurfer. This dialog has a button named "DevTech WWW", which if clicked on will cause the browser to load the DevTech Internet web site, http://www.devtech.com. This behavior may be undesirable for indexes on intranets or distributed media, like CD-ROMs. You can prevent this button from appearing by setting the ENABLEINTERNET parameter to FALSE. Values:

  1. TRUE
  2. FALSE