findinsite-cd index loading

Introduction

The index information used by FindinSite-CD is stored in a search database. A search database consists of 14 or 15 different files.

When running from CD, FindinSite-CD does not load all the search database files by default. Instead, it just loads the most crucial files and accesses the other files when it needs to, ie during a search.

FindinSite-CD has the option to load all the search database files at startup. This will make searches much faster. Unfortunately it means that FindinSite-CD will startup more slowly, and it will need more memory to run.

This option is primarily useful if you want to run FindinSite-CD online. FindinSite-CD file accesses while online are very slow compared to direct access from a CD. Full index loading gets the file accesses over and done with, so that subsequent searches will be blindingly fast. We recommend displaying results in a new window (or use a frameset) when using FindinSite-CD online so that FindinSite-CD is always present while one or more searches are carried out; otherwise when a user returns to the FindinSite-CD search page, a full database reload is done.

Online use of earlier versions of FindinSite-CD by Netscape 3 or 4 browsers also sometimes generated a "Lookup error" caused by file access problems in the Netscape Java implementation. Full index loading seems to sort this problem.

Although full index loading sounds great, remember that startup time will be slow and more memory is required. Unless your search databases are small, we do not recommend full database loading for ordinary CDs; the standard FindinSite-CD behaviour is just fine. Some folk run a web server from a CD (such as PHD's Dynamic-CD or Ximati from Imatix); in these cases we recommend full index loading because this situation is equivalent to running FindinSite-CD online. See the advice page for full details of how to run FindinSite-CD under Dynamic-CD.

LoadAllDbs parameter

By default, FindinSite-CD sees if it is running online by detecting if it is running at an http URL. If running online, then full index loading is used; otherwise it isn't.
You can override this behaviour using the new LoadAllDbs parameter. If not present, LoadAllDbs defaults to auto which selects the behaviour just described.
If the LoadAllDbs parameter is yes then full index loading is always used; if no then it is never used, eg:

<PARAM NAME=LoadAllDbs VALUE="yes">