11.1 How Templates Work

As defined above, a template is an HTML document containing one or more QuickFinder Server variables. When users search your virtual search server, they use a Web browser to access the search form template. See Figure 11-1.

The Search form template, SearchTemplate.html, is stored by default in volume:\searchroot\templates on NetWare® and in /var/lib/qfsearch/Templates on Linux. This path might be different if you chose to install QuickFinder in another directory.

Figure 11-1 The QuickFinder Form in a Web Browser

The QuickFinder form is used to capture user input, select available indexes, and return the results in either a search or print results template, which appears to the user in a dynamically updated HTML document.

Search result templates display hits according to user selections on the search form. For more information about these search result templates, see Search Page Templates.

There are search and print templates for several different languages. For information about creating templates for international languages, see Section 14.0, Internationalizing Search Services.

After a query is submitted and results are found, QuickFinder populates a results template with all relevant information for each search result. (See Figure 11-2.)

Figure 11-2 A Search Results Page Produced by ResultListTemplate.html

You can also customize the search form to include additional parameters that allow you to offer more options to your users for more accurate searching.