XML System

Whew!!! i finished a part of the xml system (the important part at least)

case 1: URL, no paragraph:

if entry does not exist, writes to an xml called fmDoc.xml, all FM information and keywords generated

case 2: URL, paragraph:

checks fmDoc.xml, if entry exists, skip. else, write to it
compare the paragraph AFTER all have been written to xml. so basically, paragraph compares with xml

case 3: no URL, paragraph:

compares paragraph to everything in the xml




some remarks i've found: it's very quick when grabbing stuff from xml. the long part is when it needs to initialize the gate resources... , after that, it compares it very quickly


next thing i have to do, is save the results. btw, do we want to create a new window to display the previous results? how do users choose whether or not they want to use previous results?

i'm still going to create the results saving, but we need to figure out how we want to allow the users to choose whether they want to select previous searches or not... let me know what you guys want to do. for now, ill just write the writer and reader for it.

well in my opinion, we wouldnt wanna make too many changes to the gui we have now or else we'd have to change a lot of our previous code so id say we should get previous results into a separate window.

right now im imagining the separate window would have a list of previous urls used with checkboxes beside them. under each url is a list of faculty member names from their respective urls. and yea user gets to check off wat he/she wants to use.

to open up the window... there would be a button below the url text box that says "Search Library...".

oh this just hit me now. if we want it in the same window (which actually looks neater now that i think of it), basically have the same list of checkboxes (just like when we choose which files to commit to the repository) in between the url box and the paragraph box.

ok i vote same window but does anyone like the idea before? anyone got a better idea? (lol that just sounded threatening "u think u got a better idea than mine punk?!" haha but seriously if u got a better one pls share. i wont bite...hard...)

i also vote same window, let's see if we can find some cool widgets to help us with it =)

for the time being, i will continue to refine the xml system and optimize some backend stuff.

So I created a drop down window. Once someone types something in the textfield it appears. My hope is that previous results will be displayed on it. I worked on it till 5:30 this morning it took so freaking long and it is still a rough design. I will finish it tonight.
Would you like me to add the check boxes and stuff to it. Look at the UI and tell me what you think.

Now that I think about it, to specifically search through links that we can check off doesn't seem to be intuitive because if we have 100 links he is not going to go looking through his favourite sites XD. I was thinking he could access his previous searches so lets say his first search was www.example.com, and the paragraph is snow. Then he should be able on his nth trial to access the first search. The first search will give him the same result set.

So the drop down window would display a list of previous searches. 1,2,3.....n. He can click on any one of them and it would give him the same result set from that search.

I hope that was easy to understand. >.<"

currently, i'm saving all previous searches, and cross referencing new searches with previous searches.

i can return a hashmap<Integer, FacultyMember> of previous searches exactly like what's being displayed now. what we can do is take that new result set, and display it in the new thing you've designed.

just let me know what you need in order for the display element to work.

also, i'm just testing my previous history stuff, is it normal for the display to show "NAME: last, first"?

otherwise, good stuff! i like it lol


EDIT: nvm nvm i see it now... lol

what happened was this:

i inputted a URL and a paragraph, for some reason it only returned "NAME".

i then inputted a paragraph ONLY, which would require it to check the XMLs, and then it returns all the information... ill take a look at why it's different =\

Now that I thought about this even more. I think it is not a good idea to have the pop up because of a couple of reasons.
1) Since it pops up under the urlText field it should display previous urls. This is a bad idea because it is not intuitive and doesn't really help the user.
2) It doesn't allow me to store the paragraphs. It wouldn't make sense to store the paragraph under the urlText field.

So this is what I am thinking. We can have a button which opens a new window which stores a list of urls and paragraphs inputed at the same time or just a paragraph inputed if there is a url in library. If you click on the url and paragraph it will search the site again and display results.

It would be nice if once a url and paragraph is inputted it could store the url, paragraph, and the most qualified professor.
This is not needed for the project so if we don't have enough time we can scrap it.

about daniels output problem:
i changed the code for the front end to show FM info with each bit of information on a new line (using newline characters \n) like this
NAME: Mohammed Wong
E-MAIL: donkeysax@woohoo.com
RELEVANCE: 92%
URL: http://www.dirtymonkeypornforkids.com/about/profiles/scrotaciousballer392.html

sadly, the list only shows them in one line.
for me, this is how it looks like
NAME: Mohammed Wong E-MAIL: donkeysax@woohoo.com RELEVANCE: 92% URL: http://www.dirtymonkeypornforkids.com/about/profiles/scrotaciousballer392.html
i guess mac does the display a lil differently

well anyway, i kept the output format the way it is cuz i figured we might change the output format from list into... something that allows each element to be displayed on multiple lines anyway. ive removed the newline characters so u should see all the information now.

LOL OMG one more thing, that link was made up. forgot that forum makes links out of urls. i hope i didnt disappoint anyone LOL

interesting sites you go on there...