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Appendix

Application Icon   General tab

On the General tab, you define the main parameters for this search set such as the default query, which filter and which scanner to use.

Search Set Editor, General Tab

Queries

Default Query: Define a default query for this search set. DEVONagent Pro will automatically fill the query field with the default query when you select this search set. This is especially useful if you are using either the same query every time you use this search set or if you are running this set on a schedule.

Example:

esa AND (mission NEAR "venus express")

Read more about formulating a query here: Read more...

Secondary Query: When you enter something here, the primary term (the one entered or the default query) is only used for querying the search engines, not for accepting or rejecting pages. Without a secondary query, DEVONagent Pro uses the primary query for both querying search engines and post-filtering results.

You can use secondary queries for different terms for querying the search engines and accepting/rejecting pages. Although the primary query is restricted to 10 words, the secondary query is not restricted.

Example:

Use the asterisk '*' as your default query to match everything, e.g, when scanning a list of websites or Atom/RSS/JSON feeds; this option is not applicable with search engine plugins, only with the Sites list. To accept all pages delivered by a primary query, use the asterisk '*' as the secondary query.

Follow links

These options tell DEVONagent Pro to follow promising links on HTML pages and in news feeds. Links are considered 'promising' if they match the entered or default query. If you enter an additional query into the text field below the pop-up menu instead, this query is used to indentify promising links.

Example:

The query 'Devonian Period -County' follows links containing 'Devonian' or 'Period' but not containing 'County'.

In the pop-up menu choose which links you want DEVONagent Pro to follow:

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    Off: Follows no links.
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    All: Follows all promising links.
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    On Same Host: Follows all promising links leading to the same server (domain).
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    In Same Directory: Follows all promising links leading to pages in the same directory.
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    In Subdirectories: Follows all promising links leading to pages in the same directory or its sub-directories.

On the right-hand side of the pop-up menu select how many levels deep you want DEVONagent Pro to follow links. One or two levels generally make sense, more is often overkill.

Use the text field below the slider to provide an additional search query that defines which links DEVONagent Pro follows. Use this option to fine tune your settings if you find that DEVONagent Pro follows meanlingless links due to the construction of the result pages. Generally, you should leave this field blank and let DEVONagent Pro follow all links matching the entered or default query; the automatically chosen term is displayed in this case.

Example:

Enter '*' to let DEVONagent Pro follow all links, regardless whether or not their text description matches the query.

Express search

Check Express Search to enable 'express' mode. In 'express' mode DEVONagent Pro returns results fast, but does not filter the results. If unchecked, DEVONagent Pro operates in 'agent' mode, which is slower but returns post-filtered results and is a more precise and powerful tool.

Note: Scanners and secondary search terms, the similar pages filter, and following links require 'agent' mode. Some plugins may also require 'agent' mode; others may not support 'express' mode.

Language

Language: Use this pop-up menu to filter out all pages that do not match the selected language (Dutch, German, English,...) or script system (Arabic, Greek, Hebrew,...) Instead of simply looking for language tags, this filter actually analyzes the page itself.

Ignore Diacritics: Check this option to automatically convert diacritics for analysis into a normalized form. This also finds pages that contain German umlauts, French or Czech accents, or other diacritical characters.

Example:

Uncheck Ignore Diacritics to search for a word with accented characters when you definitely don't want to find the unaccented variant.

Fuzzy: Check to search 'fuzzy'. This also finds words with similar but not identical spelling, e.g., 'gray' instead of 'grey'.

Filters, scanners,...

Filters: Check the following filters to automatically filter out special pages you don't want to include in the results list:

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    Similar Pages: Filters out pages similar to results previously found in the search run.
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    Archived Pages: Filters out all pages already stored in the archive. DEVONagent Pro compares only the URLs in this case, not the actual page content.

Scanner: Scanner plugins post process and filter the list of found pages by formal criteria. Read more about scanners in the appendix.

Example:

Use this powerful feature unique to DEVONagent Pro to filter, for example, all pages except those containing a thumbnail gallery, linking to Office documents, or containing email addresses.

Comments

Enter a brief description for a search set here. This description is shown in the tooltips of the magnifier pop-up menu in a search window.