MKWS: the MasterKey Widget Set

Add metasearching to your web-site painlessly

The MasterKey Widget Set provides the easiest possible way to enhance an existing web-site with customised searching across multiple sources, ranking and merging the results.

All you need to do is pull in our JavaScript and optional stylesheet, then add <div>s to your page that have special id attributes. We do the rest.

Example

Here is a completely functional (though ugly) MKWS-based searching application:

<script type="text/javascript"
        src="http://mkws.indexdata.com/mkws-complete.js"></script>
<div id="mkwsSearch"></div>
<div id="mkwsResults"></div>

That's it. A complete metasearching application. Everything else is refinement.

Documentation

• The README -- mostly technical details.
• The whitepaper, including a reference section. This is a much better introduction.

Tools

• mkws.js -- JavaScript code that powers the MasterKey Widget Set
• /pazpar2/js/pz2.js -- Low-level JavaScript library for access to the MasterKey web service.
• mkws-complete.js -- A single large JavaScript file containing everything needed for MKWS to work: the widget-set itself, the API library, and any additional prerequisites such as jQuery.
• mkws.css -- A stylesheet which styles only MasterKey widgets, and does not otherwise interfere with application-site's styles.

For examples of how to use the widget-set, see:

• A very simple application at http://example.indexdata.com/. It's worth viewing the source to see how small it is.
• A more detailed version that contains a configuration structure instead of accepting the defaults. Includes a custom translation option to present the application in Arabic.
• The jQuery plugin version, consisting of a single line of JavaScript code.
• An application that uses lower-level MKWS components rather than the all-in-one #mkwsResults division, allowing it to use a rather different layout.
• An application that specifies how to display brief and full records using Handlebar templates. (Read about the templating language.)
• A version suitable for mobile devices, with a responsive design that moves components around depending on the screen size.
• A version that uses a jQuery popup.
• An application that uses MKWS to find dictionary definitions of words when you highlight them.
• An application that runs an automatic search on load.
• An application that uses a local authentication regime, and the corresponding Apache2 configuration stanza.
• An existing web-site, The Self-Appointed Grammar Police, which has been fitted with an MKWS searching widget. (See also the MKWS-widget customisations in that site's stylesheet.)
• Another existing web-site, The Zthes specifications, which has been fitted with a popup MKWS search-box.

The set of targets can be maintained:

• Use the main MasterKey Admin Console, and act as the "MK Demo" library administrator.