And that's about it for this article. Over the last few pages, I introduced you to the ht://Dig indexing system, explaining its important features and guiding you through the process of compiling and installing it on your Linux box. With the tools installed, I then showed you how to configure it for your specific site hosting needs, and how to actually begin indexing a Web site.

With the index created, I then moved on to a discussion of the front-end interface, explaining how to build a search form to capture user queries, and pass those queries on to the ht://Dig search utility through CGI. I also demonstrated the process of altering both the search form and the search results page to blend in with the design and aesthetics of your own site design. Finally, I showed you how you could use ht://Dig to index a content-heavy database-driven site, as opposed to the standard static pages used in previous examples.

However, everything I've discussed in this article is only the tip of the
iceberg - ht://Dig can handle more than just the common scenarios discussed in this article, and if you're serious about using it on your Web site, you should also take a look at the following links:

The ht://Dig Web site, at http://www.htdig.org/

The ht://Dig FAQ, at http://www.htdig.org/FAQ.html

The ht://Dig configuration variable reference, at
http://www.htdig.org/confindex.html

The ht://Dig mailing list, at http://www.htdig.org/mailarchive.html

ConfigDig, at http://configdig.sourceforge.net/

A number of other alternatives also exist to ht://Dig - take a look at the following links to learn more about some of them:

PhpDig, at http://phpdig.toiletoine.net/

iSearch, at http://www.digvid.info/isearch/home.php

mnoGoSearch, at http://www.mnogosearch.org/

And until next time...happy searching!

Note: Examples are illustrative only, and are not meant for a production environment. Melonfire provides no warranties or support for the source code described in this article.