Docsan^TM 3.0 Help

Introduction

Docsan^TM is an electronic document access system. It permits browsing and viewing of large, complex document collections and contains powerful search capabilities to speed the location of specific information. This help system explains how to get the most out of your Docsan system.

Docsan works entirely within your browser, so your browser's capabilities are fully supported. See your browser documentation if you have questions about working with frames, copy-and-paste, links, bookmarks, or other browser features.

The following Docsan topics are covered in this help system:

Browsing
Full-text Search
Parametric Search
Options

Browsing

The table of contents (TOC) of the collection is a hierarchical list in the left frame of the browser window. A Web page is usually associated with each item in this TOC. To view an item, click on it.

A plus symbol to the far left of an item in the TOC indicates that more items are hidden below it. Click on the plus sign to display the lower level items. When the item is expanded, it has a minus symbol next to it, which may be clicked to hide the items indented beneath it.

Icons to the immediate left of each item in the TOC indicate their types:

	Concealed view of a collection or sub-collection of documents
	Expanded view of a collection or sub-collection of documents
	Document
	Direct link to a website outside the collection

Some folders or document titles in the TOC may appear in bold type, indicating that they have been revised since the original collection was published. When you click on a bold title, Docsan gives you the choice of viewing the original document or the updated one. See the Options section of this help page for information on how to deactivate or activate this feature and on how to highlight changed information in the updated document.

Full-text Search

Full-text search is useful for finding every occurrence of a word or words in a collection. When you perform a full-text search, Docsan presents you with a list of documents that contain the word or words you specified. (See the Options section for ways to customize full-text searches.)

parametric

Launching the Search Dialog

To search the collection, click on the Search button in the left frame of the browser window. The first time you do this, the Docsan dialog opens with the Search tab (full-text search) active. Thereafter, it opens to the tab that was active when the dialog was last closed. When the dialog is open, click on any tab to activate it.

Entering Search Text

To find a single word, type it into the Find: text field and then press the Enter key or click on the Search button. The search function is not case sensitive: regardless of how you type the word or phrase, Docsan will find occurrences with either uppercase or lowercase letters in them.

Docsan supports the use of AND, OR, and NOT operators to build boolean expressions that help focus the results of a full-text search. A document must contain the specified combination of words to be returned by the search. The wildcard operators "*" and "?" may also be used at the end of partial words. The special operators that may be used in full-text searches are as follows:

Operator Use

AND Use the AND operator to locate documents that contain two or more search terms you specify. (Note: actually typing the word and is optional; you can type multiple words separated by spaces to accomplish the same thing.)

OR Use the OR operator to locate documents that contain either or both of two or more search terms you specify.

NOT Use the NOT operator to locate documents that contain one search term you specify, but do not contain a different search term you specify.

* Use the asterisk wildcard operator to find words that start with the characters you specify, followed by any number of additional characters.

? Use the question mark wildcard operator to find words that start with the characters you specify, followed by one or more characters for each question mark you use.

Example searches

The following table illustrates how the full-text search in Docsan responds to different types of input.

A search for:	Will find:	Will not find:
free	free, FREE, Free, fREe, free-fall, . . .	carefree, freedom, . . .
free and easy	documents that contain both the words free and easy, anywhere in the document	documents that contain only one or neither of the words free and easy
free fat	documents that contain the phrase free fat or the phrase fat free or both	documents that contain neither the phrase free fat nor the phrase fat free
free or easy	documents that contain either or both the words free and easy, anywhere in the document	documents that contain neither the word free nor the word easy
free not easy	documents that contain the word free but do not contain the word easy	documents that contain both the words free and easy, or that contain the word easy but not the word free
free*	free, freedom, freeway, freeze . . .	documents that do not contain any words that start with the letters f-r-e-e
free?	freed, frees, freer	freedom, freeway, freeze, free . . .
free???	freedom, freeway, freezes	freed, freeze, freestanding

Troubleshooting Search Problems

Occasionally Docsan may not find instances of a word that you specify, even though you know the word is somewhere in the collection. This section explains how to modify your search to produce the results you want.

First of all, it's useful to understand what a "word" is, in the context of searching. Docsan begins with this definition of a word: A word is a sequence of characters that are some combination of uppercase letters, lowercase letters, numbers, or hyphens (A-Z, a-z, 0-9, and -).

home BigCo 100Mb Apr25 1-a

@home BigCo.com $35 3.14 4/25 1(a)

However, this definition of a word may have been modified by the publisher of the collection you are searching. For example, if the collection contains many dollar amounts that are likely to be searched, the publisher may have allowed the dollar sign and comma to be included in certain "words," so a search for an amount like $12,500 would be successful.

If you are not successful with a search request, try enclosing the search term in quotation marks. If that doesn't work, try searching for just the first portion of the word, followed by the asterisk wildcard character.

Reviewing Search Results

When the search is completed, Docsan displays a list of documents that contain at least one occurrence of the word or phrase you specified. To the left of each document title, in brackets, you may see one or two numbers (the display of these numbers is determined by settings you can change under the Options tab). One number, expressed as an integer, is the number of times your word or phrase appears in the document. The other number, expressed as a percent, is a "relevance score," which estimates the importance of the word or phrase in that document. For example,

[ 2,11%] Star Biographies indicates that two occurrences of the desired word or words were found in a document entitled "Star Biographies" and that the word or words were a relatively insignificant part of that document. Docsan estimates relevance by comparing the length of the document to how often the search word appears in it.

Double-click on a document title to display it in the main browser window. Each occurrence of the word or words you specified is highlighted in the document, with navigation arrows to take you to previous and next occurrences. You can disable this highlighting feature, and you can force the search dialog to remain open or to close automatically when you double-click a document title; see the Options section of this help page.

NOTE: If Docsan finds an unmanageably large number of matches, it will stop the search. If this happens, use the techniques described above to narrow your search and try again.

Parametric Search

Parametric searching allows you to focus your search based on categories of information--or parameters--that are specific to the collection you are searching. For example, if you were searching a collection of information about movies, one search parameter might allow you to specify one or more movie types: drama, comedy, musical, documentary, etc. Other parameters might allow you to search for movies released during certain years (or ranges of years), for non-English movies with English subtitles, or for movies that received awards. These parameters can be used in combinations, thereby targeting your searches even more. Such specific targeting is often not possible with full-text searches.

Launching a Parametric Search

To perform a parametric search, click on the Search button in the left frame of the browser window. When the Docsan dialog opens, click the Parametric tab.

Parametric

Search

full-text

Entering Parametric Search Information

Each parameter appears on the Parametric tab as a descriptive word or phrase followed by a button or a text entry field. The methods of entering parametric search information differ depending on the parameter type: Drop List, Date, Check List, Numeric, or Text. The Parametric tab for the collection you are searching may include more than one parameter of a single type, while some types may not appear at all.

NOTE: You are not required to enter information for each available parameter. Use the parameters that are most relevant for your specific search. The following table summarizes the five parameter types, their appearance, and how to use them.

Type	Appearance and Use
Drop List	Button with the word Any or the value you have specified. When you click this button (or the arrow to the right of it), a drop-down list appears of all valid values for this parameter. Click the desired value.
Date	Button with the word Any or the date or range of dates you have specified. When you click the button, a dialog appears with five date types: From, Equal to, After, Before, and Any. Select one of the five by clicking the button to its left, then set a date in the first date field by selecting the day, month, or year and clicking the up or down arrows to the desired value (if you choose From, set both a beginning and ending date). The Any button resets the dialog, permitting all dates to be searched. When finished, click OK to close the dialog.
Check List	Button with the word Any or the value(s) you have specified. When you click the button, a dialog appears with a list of values, each with a check box. Click the boxes to select (X) or deselect (no X) the values for searching. The Any button resets the dialog by selecting all values. When finished, click OK to close the dialog.
Numeric	Text entry field that is empty or contains the value you have specified. Type a number in this field, using the digits 0 through 9. Do not write out numbers, such as three or fifty-seven. A plus sign (+) or a minus sign (-) may precede the number, but no other mathematical notation may be used. Do not use commas or other punctuation with numbers.
Text	Text entry field that is empty or contains the value you have specified. Type a word or words in this field. You may also use the AND, OR, and NOT operators and the wildcard characters "*" or "?". The rules and examples for full-text searches apply to the Text parameter type as well; see the Entering Search Text section of this help page.

Reviewing Parametric Search Results

When you click the Search button on the Parametric tab, Docsan creates and displays a table of information about the documents that match the criteria you selected. The columns in the table have been specified by the publisher of the collection to provide a meaningful summary of the documents, so you can more easily select the most relevant ones.

The left-most column of the table contains icons for the documents; click an icon to link to the document. Use your browser's Back button to return to the parametric search results if you want to examine other documents.

Options

The Options tab contains settings that let you customize the way Docsan searches the collection and displays results. An explanation of each option follows:

Option	Use
Select search categories	Click the boxes to select (X) or deselect (no X) the categories for searching. Clicking a box also switches the status of any boxes indented below it in the tree.
Check for updated documents on home site	If this box is checked, Docsan will attempt to find new or updated documents for this collection on the publisher's home website. This option is selectable only if the publisher activated it when the collection was created. If your computer is not connected to the publisher's home site through the Internet or a local network, this option has no effect. Titles of new or updated documents found on the home website are displayed by Docsan in bold type in the browser table of contents.
Arrange results by relevance order	If you select this option, Docsan prints the results of a full-text search so that the documents most likely to be of interest to you are at the top.
Arrange results by natural order	If you select this option, Docsan prints the results of a full-text search so that the documents are listed in the same order as they appear in the browser table of contents.
Show relevance rank	If this box is checked, each document title that appears in the results of a full-text search will be accompanied by a percentage number (0%-100%). This number represents the estimated relevance of the search term to the overall document.
Show number of search hits	If this box is checked, each document title that appears in the results of a full-text search will be accompanied by an integer number, indicating how many times the search word appears in the document.
Hide search dialog when displaying document	If this box is checked, the search dialog closes automatically whenever you double-click on a title in the full-text search results list.
Highlight keywords	If this box is checked, words found in a document by a full-text search will be displayed in color, with navigation arrows to take you to the previous and next occurrences of the words.

About Sidana Systems, Inc.

The About tab contains information about Sidana Systems, Inc. (SSI), including a link to SSI's home page. SSI welcomes suggestions and reports of any problems arising with the use of Docsan; write to SSI at contact@sidsys.com. Note, however, that SSI cannot answer questions about the informational content of the collection itself; please direct such comments to the publisher.

Docsan is a trademark of Sidana Systems, Inc.

Operator	Use
AND	Use the AND operator to locate documents that contain two or more search terms you specify. (Note: actually typing the word and is optional; you can type multiple words separated by spaces to accomplish the same thing.)
OR	Use the OR operator to locate documents that contain either or both of two or more search terms you specify.
NOT	Use the NOT operator to locate documents that contain one search term you specify, but do not contain a different search term you specify.
*	Use the asterisk wildcard operator to find words that start with the characters you specify, followed by any number of additional characters.
?	Use the question mark wildcard operator to find words that start with the characters you specify, followed by one or more characters for each question mark you use.

DocsanTM 3.0 Help