dbWiz

Open Source Federated Searching

Version 2.0

Administration Guide

Last Updated: January 22, 2007

dbWiz Administration Guide 1

dbWiz is an open source development project of the Simon Fraser
University Library. For more information, see the reSearcher web site:
http://researcher.sfu.ca/

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-

NoDerivs License. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/
licenses/by-nc-nd/2.0/ca/ or send a letter to Creative Commons, 559 Nathan Abbott
Way, Stanford, California 94305, USA.

dbWiz Administration Guide 2

Introduction .......................................................................................... 4
Basic Searching
Searching...................................................................................
arching 5
Advanced Searching ........................................................................... 5
Search Results .................................................................................... 6
Sorting ............................................................................................... 8
Limiting..............................................................................................
Limiting 9
Administering dbWiz ........................................................................... 10
Administration Main Page ................................................................. 10
Configuration ................................................................................... 11
Search Profiles...............................................................................
Profiles 11
Search Resources .......................................................................... 14
Search Options .............................................................................. 16
Display Options ............................................................................. 16
Authorization IDs .......................................................................... 17
Customizing Templates .................................................................... 18
Customizing Style Sheets..................................................................
Sheets 20
Changing Font Size ....................................................................... 21
Changing the Search History Box Field Colours .............................. 21
Customizing ‘Splash’ Items...............................................................
Items 22
The Logout Button.........................................................................
Button 23
The Selected Search Tab ................................................................ 24
The Non-
Non-Selected Search Tab ........................................................ 25
The Result List Border Colour ........................................................ 26
Creating a Quick Search Box ............................................................. 26

dbWiz Administration Guide 3

Introduction
dbWiz is an open source federated search engine developed at the Simon
Fraser University Library.

dbWiz allows researchers to search multiple databases, web sites,

catalogues, and other online resources from a single interface, and
presents the results in an integrated list.

This guide is designed to assist institutions with a hosting and service

contract with the Simon Fraser University Library. It will be expanded with
information for the wider open source community in the future.

Any questions about dbWiz should be directed to dbwiz-support@sfu.ca

dbWiz Administration Guide 4

Searching dbW
dbWiz
Basic Searching

Basic searching provides users a minimal interface and requires few

decisions to begin to retrieve high quality search results. They must
simply select a search category (e.g., Most Popular Databases) and one or
more keywords. Boolean AND, OR, and NOT are supported (as long as the
native resource being searched supports it).

Figure 1: Basic searching

Advanced Searching

Advanced searching provides users with search fields to construct more

complex search statements, and also allows users to select their own
resources for searching.

dbWiz Administration Guide 5

Figure 2: Advanced searching

Search Results

The search results are displayed in an Internet search engine format. All
available citation details are provided, along with a link to either the
native interface or a link resolver (e.g., GODOT – see
http://researcher.sfu.ca/ for details).

dbWiz Administration Guide 6

Figure 3: Result screen

Note the Search History box on the left of the screen. This displays the
number of hits that were found for each resource searched. It can also be
used to quickly return to the results of a previous search (Search 1: KW
stanley park is a link).

All of a user’s searches will display along the left side of the screen until
they log out.

Clicking on the find more from Proquest - CBCA Reference link will take
you to the native search interface for that resource.

Clicking on the title of the record will take you to the article or citation
when it is available. This is an example from CBCA Reference:

dbWiz Administration Guide 7

Figure 4: Native citation record

Sorting

By default, search results are sorted as defined by your library (see

Display Options). Users can also re-sort their results using the options
provided (for example, by Year).

Figure 5: Results sorted by year

dbWiz Administration Guide 8

Limiting

Limiting of the search results by date is also available. Limiting by

academic or non-academic or by full-text or non-full-text is also
possible, but until better metasearching standards are developed, we
don’t recommend using these, as they are not always reliable.

Figure 6: Limiting search results

dbWiz Administration Guide 9

Administering dbWiz
dbWiz
To customize your library’s dbWiz interface, log in to the dbWiz
administration page:

http://dbwiz.lib.sfu.ca/DBWIZ_config/config.cgi

If you do not have a username, or have forgotten your password, contact

dbwiz-support@sfu.ca

Administration Main Page

The dbWiz Administration Page consists of 4 main sections: a Sandbox,

Sandbox
where changes can be tested before going “live”; Configuration,
Configuration where
you can quickly change elements of your dbWiz search; and Templates
and Style Sheets
Sheets,
heets where you can change the “look and feel” of your dbWiz
search interface.

Figure 7: Administration Options

dbWiz Administration Guide 10

Configuration
Configuration

The configuration options allow you to quickly change elements of

dbWiz.

Figure 8: Configuration Options

Search Profiles

Search profiles (or categories) are an important part of dbWiz searching,

and allow library staff to assist users by selecting the best resources for a
subject-based search. Profiles are generally based on a discipline (e.g.,
History, Biology), but can also be created for a specific course (e.g.,
Geography 111), or even for an individual assignment (e.g., Sociology
444 – Assignment 4).

To create a new category:

• Select Configuration and then Search Profiles.

Profiles
• Type the name of the new category into the Add field and click
Submit.
Submit It will now appear in the list of categories.

dbWiz Administration Guide 11

 Figure 9: Adding a new category

• To edit your new category, select the Edit icon from the Sandbox
column for the category.

Figure 10:
10 Editing a category

• From the Edit screen, you can decide whether or not to display the
category in the public list of searchable categories. Course or
assignment categories are often excluded from the main dbWiz list.
You can give the category a unique name if you wish, and provide a
description of the category.

dbWiz Administration Guide 12

 • Using the Add dropdown menu, you can now begin to add
resources to the category. Find a resource and click the Add
button. It will now appear in the Resources section of the Edit
screen.

Figure 11: Adding a resource to a category

• As you add resources, you can rank each one, adjusting their
position using the green arrows. Higher ranked items will appear
before lower ranked ones.

Figure 12:
12 Ranking resources

• Resources can be deleted from a category using the Remove icon.

• When you have finished editing the category, select the Submit
button.

dbWiz Administration Guide 13

You can run a test search in the Sandbox. Once you are satisfied with the
category, you can activate it using the Transfer arrow.

Figure 13:
13 Activating a category

The category is now available to be searched by your users.

Search Resources

Selecting the Search Resources configuration group link will provide a list
of all the resources currently searched by dbWiz for your library.

Figure 14:
14 Search resources

dbWiz Administration Guide 14

The Status column indicates whether a resource is currently available, or
is experiencing a temporary problem. The ID column is a system
identifier. To see the details of each resource, select the View icon.

Figure 15:
15 Resource details

Currently, the main considerations for this page are:

1. Hide/Show the GODOT link:

link For indexes, such as America History
and Life, a GODOT link is a useful addition. Fulltext resources, such
as the SFU Cartoons database do not require a link resolver, as
dbWiz will take the user directly to the native database. For mixed
resources, such as Academic Search Premier, each library must
decide what the preferred option is.
2. Overriding the display name:
name A default display name has been
provided for each resource, but this section allows you to add a
different name when necessary.

dbWiz Administration Guide 15

 3. Overriding the description:
description Like the display name, dbWiz also
provides a default description, which you can override with your
own localized description.
4. Overriding the entry URL:
URL If your library’s entry URL for the
resource differs from the default, you can change it here.
5. Overriding the academic setting:
setting Each resource has been given a
rough designation of academic or non-academic. You can override
that default here. This is only used if you have activated the
academic sorting option for dbWiz.

Use the Submit button to save any changes you make to the resource
details.

Search Options

Selecting the Search Options configuration group link will allow you to
designate how many results should be returned from each resource
during a dbWiz search. Remember, the larger the number, the longer the
search will take. We recommend 10 – 20, to avoid resource timeouts. Use
the Submit button to save your changes.

Figure 16:
16 Setting the returns per resource

Display Options

Selecting the Display Options configuration group link will allow you to
configure elements of the dbWiz display.

dbWiz Administration Guide 16

Figure 17:
17 Setting display options

Display
Display basic search by default will determine whether your users
encounter the basic or advanced search screen first.

Default number of records to display per page will determine how much
scrolling is required by your users – more results will create longer pages.

Default record sort order will determine what kind of sorting will be used
for the initial results display, including by database (alphabetical), by rank
(as set in the search profile above), or by year (with more recent results
appearing at the top). Users will be able to change the sort order from the
result list.

Authorization IDs

Selecting the Authorization IDs configuration group link allows you to

enter any unique identifiers to your dbWiz resources:

Figure 18:
18 Authorization IDs

Contact your vendor to find out your Z39.50 username and password.

dbWiz Administration Guide 17

Customizing Templates

Like the other reSearcher products GODOT and CUFTS (see

http://researcher.sfu.ca/), dbWiz uses templates to construct the pages
displayed on screen. These templates can be modified to allow libraries
to customize the structure of their dbWiz pages, including where
elements appear on the pages, or to add unique elements, such as
headers or footers.

Some familiarity with programming is required for some of the more

complex customization that is possible within the templates. In most
cases, libraries will only want to add their own header or footer.

Any questions can be directed to dbwiz-support@sfu.ca

To access the templates, go to the main administration page, and select

'Templates'. The template groups include:
• Main,
Main which control the headers, footers, etc.
• Search Form,
Form which controls the search interface display.
• Search Results,
Results which controls the search results display.

Within each template group are a series of individual templates,

organized as Basic, Intermediate, or Advanced, depending on the level of
programming that is included in the template. In most cases, you should
be able to avoid this programming language. Each template has a unique
name as well as a brief description of what elements it controls. For
example, from the Main template group, the page_header template
allows you to add your own header to all of your dbWiz pages.

dbWiz Administration Guide 18

Figure 19:
19 Templates

To edit a template, chose the Edit

Edit icon from the Sandbox column.

Figure 20:
20 Editing a template

Note that the characters [%# and %] enclose comment text and can be
changed, removed, or ignored without affecting the template.

Unless you have experience working with templates, avoid changing

anything between the [% and %] characters (notice that the # symbol is
missing, indicating that these are NOT comments). These commands
control the functionality of the templates and could cause dbWiz to stop
working. If in doubt, please contact dbwiz-support@sfu.ca

To add a new header to the template in the example above, remove the
existing line of HTML:

dbWiz Administration Guide 19

 <a class="maintitle" href="[% url %]"> dbWiz </a>

and replace it with your own. For example:

<img src=”libraryHeaderImage.jpg”>

Templates will accept any HTML tagging, so it is possible to copy and

paste from your existing library web pages (or from your GODOT or
CUFTS header templates - see http://www.researcher.sfu.ca/ for details)
directly onto this dbWiz template. Use the Submit button to save your
changes to the Sandbox.

You can now preview your changes in the dbWiz Sandbox. When you are
satisfied with your changes, use the Transfer arrow to make your updates
active.

Customizing Style Sheets

Sheets

Like its partner reSearcher products GODOT and CUFTS (see

http://www.researcher.sfu.ca/), dbWiz also makes use of Cascading Style
Sheets to control design elements, such as fonts, colours, etc.

Selecting Style Sheets

Sheets from the left menu box will take you to the Style
Sheets page, where you can edit your dbWiz styles. Click the Edit icon in
the Sandbox column.

Figure 21:
21 dbWiz Style sheet

dbWiz Administration Guide 20

Changing Font Size

In the CSS Editing page, you can make any style changes you wish. For
example, changing the font size from 12 to 10 in the example below
would reduce the fonts throughout dbWiz.

Figure 22:
22 Editing the dbWiz Style sheet

Use the Submit button to save your changes to the Sandbox. When you
are satisfied with your updates, use the Transfer
Transfer arrow to activate the
new styles.

Changing the Search History Box Field Colours

To change the colours of the header and content

background fields in the Search History box, you will
need to adjust your style sheet.

Find the following style sheet entries:

For the Search box headers (light blue in the example):

Figure 23:
23 Search

dbWiz Administration Guide 21

Box Colours

table.tabular td.header {
background: #B0C4DE;
color: #050550;
font-variant: small-caps;
font-weight: bold;
font-size: 90%;
padding-left: 5px;
padding-right: 5px;
}

For the Search box content fields (white in the example):

table.tabular {
background: #FFFFFF;
border-collapse: collapse;
table-layout: auto;
width: 100%;
}

Remember to view your changes in the Sandbox,

Sandbox and Transfer
Transfer them to
Active when you are satisfied with them.

Customizing ‘Splash’ Items

The rounded tabs, buttons, and some of the borders used on the dbWiz
user interface are controlled by template elements known as Splash
Wrappers. These instructions will show you how to change the colours for
these, to better match your library’s colour scheme.

At this time, the available colours are limited to those on this page:
http://dbwiz.lib.sfu.ca/tt2/templates/html/rgb

dbWiz Administration Guide 22

The Logout Button

To change the colour of the dbWiz logout button, go to the page_footer

template. Find this piece of template coding:

[% WRAPPER splash/button
align = 'left'
-%]
Add the following line:

[% WRAPPER splash/button
col = ‘navy’
align = 'left'
-%]

In some cases, your colour choice may be too dark for the text to show
up. To change the font colour to white, add this line to your style sheet:

.page-footer a {
color: #FFFFFF;
}

Remember to Transfer your changes from the Sandbox to the Active

templates.

dbWiz Administration Guide 23

The Selected Search Tab

You can also change the colour of the selected search tab. This would be
the ‘Basic Search’ tab when you are on the Basic Search screen, or the
‘Advanced Search’ tab when you are on the Advanced Search screen. To
do this, go to the splash_config template. Change this template coding
(found a little over half way down the screen):

select = {
name = "Selected"
col = {
fore = 'navy'
edge = 'mauve'
fill = 'grey75'
text = 'white'
}
font = {
bold = 1
}

This tab will now appear navy blue in my dbWiz Sandbox.

Sandbox

Figure 24:
24 Selected Search Tab

dbWiz Administration Guide 24

The Non-
Non-Selected Search Tab

From the same splash_config template, change this coding:

style = {
default = {
name = "Default"
# border/space/pad widths
border = 2
space = 2
pad = 2

col = {
page => 'lilac' # page border
back => 'white' # background
fore => 'grey75' # foreground (e.g. button)
edge => 'lilac' # edging strip
fill => 'white' # fill (e.g. panels)
text => 'black' # text
icon => 'black' # icons
}

font = {
# face = 'Helvetica, Arial, Sans-Serif'
# size = '+1'
# bold = 1
}

This tab will now appear light grey in my dbWiz Sandbox.

Sandbox In addition, this
will also change the colour of the right-hand Search tab on the result
screen.

Figure 25:
25 Changing tab colours

dbWiz Administration Guide 25

The Result List Border Colour

To change the colour of the border around the result list, use the same
splash_config template, change this coding:

style = {
default = {
name = "Default"
# border/space/pad widths
border = 2
space = 2
pad = 2

col = {
page => 'lilac' # page border
back => 'white' # background
fore => 'grey75' # foreground (e.g. button)
edge => 'navy' # edging strip
fill => 'white' # fill (e.g. panels)
text => 'black' # text
icon => 'black' # icons

Creating a Quick Search Box

In addition to using dbWiz as a standalone search tool, you can also

embed a dbWiz search box in any web page, such as a subject resource
guide, for example.

dbWiz Administration Guide 26

Figure 26:
26 Embedding a dbWiz search box

To do this, add the following code to your existing web page (although
use your own proxy prefix information in the URL):
<form method="post"
action="http://proxy.lib.sfu.ca/form?qurl=http://dbwiz.lib.sfu.ca/cgi-
bin/dbwiz/dbwiz2.pl">
<input name="site" value="BVAS" type="hidden">
<input name="search_profile" value="14" type="hidden">
<input name="search_string" size=35 maxlength=100 type="text"
id="search_string" nowrap=1>
<INPUT name="state" value="run_search" type="hidden" id="state">
<input name="state" value="search" type="submit">
</form>

Note the VALUE="14" refers to the subject category you will have
previously created (in this case, the Biology category).

You can find out the correct value number for your category from the
Search Profile configuration screen. Click the View icon in the Active
column for the desired category.

dbWiz Administration Guide 27

Figure 27:
27 Search Profile configuration screen

The numeric value is displayed in the URL bar of your browser.

28 Determining the Biology Profile Value

Figure 28:

dbWiz Administration Guide 28