Peer support is available at the Discussion Forum. This is an area where you can ask questions of other users, or help other users. Responses aren't guaranteed by the author of the script, though the forum is monitored for consistent bug reports and the like.
Key resources
The main search page - download link, install instructions, etc.
deb Christensen's FDSE FAQ - a searchable question-and-answer resource
Install, upgrade, and re-install
- System requirements
- How to migrate from one server to another
- Upgrading or re-installing over an existing version
- Support for mysql dropped in FDSE version 2.0.0.0064
- When do I need to re-build my index files?
- My browser tries to download the script instead of showing me the web page
- Configuring mySQL on Windows 2000
- Error "could not get shared read lock" occurs when viewing admin page
- Migrating to FDSE from Xavatoria, Intermediate Search, or Matt Wright's Simple Search
- Error: could not save password - 'unable to update file 'settings.pl.exclusive_lock_request' - Permission denied'
- Gaining true root access on Darwin / Mac OS X
- Web browser displays source code
- Search page works, but Admin page returns "500 Internal Error"
- Looping while setting the admin password
- Initial visit to script works okay, but subsequent requests always fail
- Handling error "Can't locate X in @INC (@INC contains..."
- Handling error "Missing right bracket in common_admin.pl..."
- Dealing with error "The crypt() function is unimplemented due to excessive paranoia"
- Help with downloading
- See also: Manual Install Instructions
- See also: Auto-Installer
Getting started
Licensing / Payment
- How can I purchase a license?
- Description of "per-instance" licensing
- Are discounts available to non-profits, educational sites, etc.?
- How long does the shareware version last?
- Difference between Freeware, Shareware, and Registered versions
- Handling errors when entering registration key
- Updating name and email address in registration keys
- Refund policy
- Volume discounts for multiple license purchasers and resellers
- Transaction documentation: invoices and receipts
- See also: Purchase Form
- See also: Fluid Dynamics Software License
Limitations and things that cannot be done
- Using FDSE to search a database or database-driven content
- Running as a "meta search" to display results of other search engines
- How can I look like Yahoo!?
- How to be a Internet-wide search engine
- Can visitors add an entire site?
- Total number of documents which can be searched
- Lack of support for CFM, advanced SSI, and other server-side code within FDSE template files
- Lack of support for thumbnail images in search results
- Lack of support for non-Latin text
- Lack of support for searching complex BBS forums
Customizing HTML
- Customizing HTML
- Customizing HTML: Using a fixed-width table
- Customizing HTML: How to use variables in templates
- Customizing HTML: List of all available variables
- Customizing HTML: Using Conditional Statements in Templates
- Customizing HTML: Parsing Server-Side Includes (SSI)
- Customizing HTML: Adding "Other Pages from This Site" to Result List
- Customizing HTML: Removing the publicly-viewable copyright
- Customizing HTML: Customizing appearance based on selected Realm
- Using frames in search results
- Customizing strings.txt
- Displaying "Most Popular Searches"
- Accessibility and compliance with US government 508 standards
- Common problems when customizing HTML
- Customizing HTML: Highlighting keywords in the search result listing
- Lack of support for CFM, advanced SSI, and other server-side code within FDSE template files
- Customizing the FDSE layout using ASP
- Customizing the FDSE layout using PHP
- Customizing the FDSE layout using Cold Fusion CFM
Advanced searching
- Support for META headers
- Advanced Search: Selecting Realms by name
- Advanced Search: Selecting number of search results per page
- Advanced Search: Controlling realm options
- Advanced Search: Opening search results in a new window or frame
- Searching secondary search engines
- How to show examples of keyword matches in the search result listings
- Advanced Search: Highlighting search terms in the actual document
- Advanced Search: Making some realms invisible
- Advanced Search: Matching approximate plural forms
- Advanced Search: Forcing additional search terms
- Handling search terms that are valid URLs
- Same title and/or description for all pages on site
- Wildcard (asterisk *) behavior and how to customize it
- Positioning the search form on the search results page
- Using relative paths in the search results
- Advanced Search: Matching substrings instead of whole words
- Advanced Search: Example of advanced search form
Sorting results
- Sorting search results
- Sorting Results: How relevance is calculated
- Sorting Results: Searching time-sensitive documents
- Sorting Results: Handling results with equal relevance
- Displaying the relevance ranking in search results
Security
- Security checklist
- Security: How to update your password
- Security: How to force a reset of the admin password
- Security: Controlling the session timeout value
- Security: Changing the location of the searchdata folder
- Looping while setting the admin password
- Error: could not save password - 'unable to update file 'settings.pl.exclusive_lock_request' - Permission denied'
- Security: Restricting admin login to certain IP addresses or IP ranges
- Features of the admin interface which depend on Javascript and cookies
Controlling which pages are indexed
- How to prevent your pages from being indexed
- How to prevent sections of your pages from being indexed
- How to forbid pages that you don't control
- Indexing pages which aren't linked from other pages
- Limiting the crawler to n levels or directories
- How to index links
- Preventing duplicate records
- Reasons a URL may not be included in the index
- How to index all documents linked from a site
- Skipping pages which use META refresh
Searching binary files
- Searching binary files
- Displaying file-type icons in search results
- Maintain HTML copies of each written binary document
- Maintain HTML files about each non-written binary document
- Indexing PDF files using runtime conversion with XPDF
- Indexing Microsoft Word documents using runtime conversion with Antiword
- Indexing MP3 files using built-in runtime conversion
- Perform manual extraction of text from binary files
- Search for keywords only in URL and filename of binary files
Crawling web pages
- Trouble-shooting network errors
- Get "Permission Denied" error when indexing remote page
- Support for FDSE-Index-As META header
- Support for proprietary FDSE-Keywords, FDSE-Description, FDSE-Robots META headers
- Script is indexing my custom 404 Not Found page
- Searching for something does not return expected pages
- Using the web crawler through a proxy server
- Crawling password-protected web pages that return 401 Auth Required
- Indexing secure SSL / https web pages
- Crawler does not find links within client-side content (such as Javascript menus)
- Log of pages that fail to be indexed
Automation and administration
- Administration: Creating a realm configuration
- Administration: Creating a "file system" realm
- How and when to use Filtered Realms
- Dealing with server timeouts and killed processes
- How to automatically rebuild the index
- How to bulk load URL's
- How to use FDSE from the command line
- Building index files remotely
- How to use FDSE as a Perl API
- Configuring FDSE to send mail
- Features of the admin interface which depend on Javascript and cookies
Localization
- Lack of support for non-Latin text
- Translating the user interface
- Character conversion settings
- How to use FDSE to search Arabic and Hebrew text
- How to use FDSE to search Russian text
- How to use FDSE to search Romanian text
- Dynamically changing the interface language
Resource usage, capacity and speed
- How to make searches faster
- How to display how long a search took
- How many searches per day can be served?
- Preventing usage spikes due to automated access
- How to make search results more useful
- Support for Apache mod_perl
- How to make indexing faster
- Setting seaches to run in a case sensitive manner
Visitor submissions
- How to allow visitor URL submissions
- Can visitors add an entire site?
- Automatic submissions to the visitor-added URL form
Miscellaneous help topics
- Preventing duplicates for sites with multiple names (i.e. foo.com = www.foo.com)
- How to force or override DNS lookups
- Indexing addresses with query strings
- Format of "search.pending.txt" file
- Format of the text index files
- Following Symbolic Links while Indexing Files
- How to ignore common search terms
- Following Links with Crawler
- Calculating last-modified time
- How to fix error "Undefined subroutine &main::SearchRunTime called"
- How to fix error "Undefined subroutine &main::Trim called"
- Images, banners, and logos for FDSE
- How to display all records
- Using DBM files in FDSE
- URL rewrite limitations with file system discovery
- How to index only the titles of documents
Filter rules
- Filter Rules: Creating a new Filter Rule
- Limiting the crawler to n levels or directories
- Filter Rules: Filtering based on PICS header
- Filter Rules: Allowing Only Top-Level Documents
- Filter Rules: Using the "always allow" rule
- Filter Rules: Using the "deny" rule
- Filter Rules: Using the "require approval" rule
- Filter Rules: How to promote certain sites or web pages
- Filter Rules: Using the "no update on redirect" rule
- Filter Rules: Using the "index, nofollow" filter rule
- Filter Rules: Using the "follow,noindex" filter rule
- Directory listings in the search results
- Filter Rules: Avoiding redundant Apache directory listings
- Filter Rules: Bypassing all directory listings
- Filter Rules: Bypassing directory listings of empty directories
Logging
Advertising
- Advertising: How Internet advertising works
- Advertising: How the FDSE advertising system works
- Advertising: Selecting a pay-per-click affiliate
- Advertising: Reports
- Advertising: Editing the ads.xml file directly
- Advertising: How to get help from a live person
download.zip contains all help files for off-line browsing.
If you wish to modify the help files, see Working with FDSE help for a separate download.