Hi all - 1st time here. I'm looking for a php-based site indexing search script, preferably free, fairly robust, and configurable. I've been trying to work with the RiSearch PHP script but it hasn't come to much so far...

Thanks for any help

Noah

    11 days later

    Actually just want to find a pretty good php-based spider to offer a better level of search on my site. But I am separately looking into CMSs for another site I'm planning to work on. If this isn't too far off-topic, could you tell me why Drupal and not Mambo?

      Sure. I tried out a bunch of CMSs for a couple of sites. Drupal turned out to be quick, versitile, well organized, and has an active community. I wrote a couple of modules and found Drupal's code to be excellent. Customizing modules or creating new ones is easy, as are themes. I maintain two of the modules on drupal's project pages and I still use it to run my sites.

      Mambo has some great themes, but the code is a mess. I found it extremely difficult to customize or create new modules. Even if I weren't adding my own code, the fact Drupal is very well written means it'll stay alive longer and adapt with the times. I highly recommend it for general needs. Of course other CMSs may be better suited to certain situations.

        Thanks verdicus - I've been vaccillating between these 2 for awhile now, and the prospect of 'trying them out' (when its usually only after using one for a good deal of time that you become aware of its deficiencies) was not that appealing.

          10 days later

          I'd like to get a sense for how difficult is it to write a module for Drupal. The site I need to build has requirements that are not met by the current list of Drupal modules.

          How strong does one's PHP skills need to be ....I suppose I am intermediate.

            Intermediate skills are sufficient. The learning curve is with their own API. But the API is very well organized and documented. In fact you can go to http://drupaldocs.org to browse the automatically generated documentation. And you can browse the drupal handbook for longer instructions. I found it very easy to take a small module, learn how it worked, and modify it for my own needs.

            What modules do you require?

              Are you available for short-term needs (like getting a proto-site up and running, maybe some module customization) ....or should I browse the list of service providers on the Drupal site?

              I'm still trying to wrap my head around the Drupal 'system' (nodes, taxonomies, vocabularies - if they would just have sample site, where newbies could see inside, it would help a great deal in understanding the concepts).

              I am nowhere near building custom modules yet.

                I'm sorry I don't have the time. But the community is very helpful, so I'd suggest posting to their forum.

                They also have a page listing many sites that run drupal. The 2 in my sig run drupal. If you have the time to install it and play around with it it'll probably make a lot of sense.

                  10 days later

                  Hi,

                  You may find something my colleague and I have created very useful.

                  It's called Grow Search. It uses no client-side scripting at all, just PHP with a simple XHTML 1.0 Strict form and buttons to search the site or display a site map. It indexes content on the fly so gives accurate results as soon as new content is added to a site. It also produces results in a simple XHTML list and displays pages by directory location and description. The description can be any unique HTML tag a designer might choose to use like the page <title> or <h1>. The form and results are easily styled using CSS.

                  We've worked hard to try and cover all the bases to make a plug-in that designers don't have to code other than styling it if they wish. We've also worked hard to give meaningful results based on keyword density from the document content and include features like the ability to hide directories, file types and files from the results.

                  The full features and demo is here: http://www.gr0w.com/amos/growsearch/

                  The official press release can be read here: http://www.gr0w.com/articles/press/grow_search_launched_press_release/

                  There is also an article on how and why we did it here: http://www.gr0w.com/articles/code/the_birth_of_growsearch/

                  All positive or negative suggestions and comments will be appreciated and taken note of. Many thanks for your time.

                  Regards,

                  Paul

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