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Customizing the FDSE layout using Cold Fusion CFM

Overview and notes:

This article describes how the FDSE layout -- including the search tips page and the search results page -- can be rendered using Cold Fusion (CFM) pages. This is intended for advanced developers who want to integrate FDSE into a web site that uses consistent, CFM-based layout on all pages.

Please note:

Definition of areas:

The output of FDSE consists of the following four "areas":

  1. Invisible HTTP headers (Perl-generated)

  2. HTML header and optional left sidebar (template /search/searchdata/templates/header.htm)

  3. Active area (Perl-generated)

  4. HTML footer and optional right sidebar (template /search/searchdata/templates/footer.htm)

Set-Cookie: fdse_cp=0
Content-Type: text/html		 Invisible HTTP headers
HTML header and optional left sidebar

# the script "active area", including:

Search Results
Your search for foo found the following documents (of 455 documents searched):
Displaying documents 1-10 of 58, with best matches first:

1. Installer Help
foo bar xyz
URL: http://www.xav.com/scripts/installer/3004.html - 2KB - 30 Jul 2002

2. How to manage files whose names begin with a dot
Filenames beginning with a dot are considered "hidden files" in the Unix world...
URL: http://www.xav.com/scripts/installer/3061.html - 6KB - 13 Aug 2003
HTML footer and optional right sidebar

With CFM integration, all areas except the center active area are suppressed. The HTML for the active area is made available as the return value of a <cfmodule> call.

Definition of self-reference:

FDSE contains many types of navigation, including the search form, the "search tips" link, and the "Prev / 1 / 2 / 3 / Next" links which appear when there are multiple pages of results.

Such navigation uses the automatically-detected URL of the search script to ensure that all requests continue to come back to the same script. This is called self-referencing navigation and it requires special treatment when a CFM script is layered above the Perl script.

Changes during integration:

When using CFM integration, FDSE chooses not to print the hidden HTTP headers, the HTML header, and the HTML footer. Instead, it creates only the active area. The HTML for the active area is made available within CFM as the #FDSE_Output# variable, which is populated during a special <cfmodule> call.

In addition, all self-referencing navigation is changed to the use the URL of the parent CFM page, rather than the URL of the Perl script which is being called "under the hood".

Steps to enable:

Follow these steps to embed FDSE within your CFM layout:

  1. Install FDSE version 2.0.0.0071 or newer.

  2. Once installed, visit the FDSE admin page via the normal Perl script ("search.pl?Mode=Admin"). Ensure that you can login. Create a search realm that contains test content.

  3. Go to Admin Page => General Settings. At the very top of the page will be the version and path of Perl; it will read something like "Perl version is 5.008 (E:\perl\bin\perl.exe)". Take note of the path to Perl.

  4. Visit the default search page "search.pl". Perform a test search to ensure that results are returned.

    It is essential that you configure FDSE to work properly via the standard Perl interfaces first, before moving to CFM. It will be very difficult to debug problems in the CFM integration if the core Perl interfaces are failing.

  5. In the same folder as "search.pl", create a file named "search.cfm" containing the following:

    Request the file with your browser. If it doesn't print out "hello world", then there is no way that FDSE-CFM integration will work on your server. Quit now.

  6. Next, modify your "search.cfm" file to contain:

    Customize the four variables as needed:

    1. search_script - this is the absolute path and filename of your Perl search script, such as:

      search_script = "e:\webroot\www.xav.com\search\search.pl"

      Do not use the URL path here.

    2. echo_verbose - this is a Boolean flag for including extra tests and debug output. Leave at 1 at first. Set it to 0 once things work properly.

    3. self_url - this is the URL of the CFM page. The default value cgi.script_name should be sufficient in 99.99% of cases. If that dynamic auto-detect value doesn't work, you should enter the explicit URL, like "/search/search.cfm".

    4. path_to_perl - enter the full Windows file system path to Perl, using single backslashes to separate folders. This value was found in step 3 above. Examples of valid values are "c:\perl\bin\perl.exe" and "e:\perl\bin\perl.exe".

  7. Visit "search.cfm" again with your browser.

    Now you should see some colored table cells for the various page areas. In the center table cell, you should see some red-highlighted debug output. If all goes well, below that you should see the default search form and search tips.

    If you don't see the default search form and tips, then the red-highlighted debug output will probably contain an error message.

  8. If the search form and search tips appear as expected, you should perform some test searches. Include at least one search that returns multiple pages of results, and click through the "Prev / 1 / 2 / 3 / Next" navigation links. Confirm that each request connects back with your custom CFM file.

    If subsequent form submissions and links do not connect back to your custom CFM file, you should post to the Discussion Forum with full details.

  9. Finally, once testing has been completed, edit the CFM file again and set "echo_verbose" to 0. Then add in all of your standard CFM header and footer code, so that the FDSE layout matches that of the rest of your site.

Note that if you host FDSE at http://www.mysite.tld/search/search.pl, and want the CFM file in your root folder like http://www.mysite.tld/search.cfm, then your CFM file will need to contain:

<cfmodule
	template="search/searchmods/integrate.cfm"
	          ^^^^^^^

Limitations


    "Customizing the FDSE layout using Cold Fusion CFM"
    http://www.xav.com/scripts/search/help/1195.html