<chapter id="introduction">
- <!-- $Id: introduction.xml,v 1.46 2007-02-05 13:35:12 marc Exp $ -->
+ <!-- $Id: introduction.xml,v 1.49 2007-02-05 14:32:31 marc Exp $ -->
<title>Introduction</title>
<section id="overview">
code is open to anybody to read and change under the GPL license.
</para>
<para>
- &zebra; is a networked component which acts as a reliable &z3950; server
+ &zebra; is a networked component which acts as a
+ reliable &z3950; server
for both record/document search, presentation, insert, update and
delete operations. In addition, it understands the &sru; family of
- webservices, which exist in &rest; &get;/&post; and truly &soap; flavors.
+ webservices, which exist in &rest; &get;/&post; and truly
+ &soap; flavors.
</para>
<para>
&zebra; is available as MS Windows 2003 Server (32 bit) self-extracting
<table id="table-features-document" frame="top">
<title>&zebra; document model</title>
<tgroup cols="4">
+ <colspec colwidth="1*" colname="feature"/>
+ <colspec colwidth="1*" colname="availability"/>
+ <colspec colwidth="3*" colname="notes"/>
+ <colspec colwidth="2*" colname="references"/>
<thead>
<row>
<entry>Feature</entry>
<table id="table-features-search" frame="top">
<title>&zebra; search functionality</title>
<tgroup cols="4">
+ <colspec colwidth="1*" colname="feature"/>
+ <colspec colwidth="1*" colname="availability"/>
+ <colspec colwidth="3*" colname="notes"/>
+ <colspec colwidth="2*" colname="references"/>
<thead>
<row>
<entry>Feature</entry>
<table id="table-features-scan" frame="top">
<title>&zebra; index scanning</title>
<tgroup cols="4">
+ <colspec colwidth="1*" colname="feature"/>
+ <colspec colwidth="1*" colname="availability"/>
+ <colspec colwidth="3*" colname="notes"/>
+ <colspec colwidth="2*" colname="references"/>
<thead>
<row>
<entry>Feature</entry>
<entry>term suggestions</entry>
<entry><literal>Scan</literal> on a given named index returns all the
indexed terms in lexicographical order near the given start
- term. This can be used to create drop-down menues and search
+ term. This can be used to create drop-down menus and search
suggestions.</entry>
<entry><xref linkend="querymodel-operation-type-scan"/> and
<xref linkend="querymodel-atomic-queries"/>
<table id="table-features-presentation" frame="top">
<title>&zebra; document presentation</title>
<tgroup cols="4">
+ <colspec colwidth="1*" colname="feature"/>
+ <colspec colwidth="1*" colname="availability"/>
+ <colspec colwidth="3*" colname="notes"/>
+ <colspec colwidth="2*" colname="references"/>
<thead>
<row>
<entry>Feature</entry>
<table id="table-features-sort-rank" frame="top">
<title>&zebra; sorting and ranking</title>
<tgroup cols="4">
+ <colspec colwidth="1*" colname="feature"/>
+ <colspec colwidth="1*" colname="availability"/>
+ <colspec colwidth="3*" colname="notes"/>
+ <colspec colwidth="2*" colname="references"/>
<thead>
<row>
<entry>Feature</entry>
<table id="table-features-updates" frame="top">
<title>&zebra; live updates</title>
<tgroup cols="4">
+ <colspec colwidth="1*" colname="feature"/>
+ <colspec colwidth="1*" colname="availability"/>
+ <colspec colwidth="3*" colname="notes"/>
+ <colspec colwidth="2*" colname="references"/>
<thead>
<row>
<entry>Feature</entry>
<table id="table-features-protocol" frame="top">
<title>&zebra; networked protocols</title>
<tgroup cols="4">
+ <colspec colwidth="1*" colname="feature"/>
+ <colspec colwidth="1*" colname="availability"/>
+ <colspec colwidth="3*" colname="notes"/>
+ <colspec colwidth="2*" colname="references"/>
<thead>
<row>
<entry>Feature</entry>
<table id="table-features-scalability" frame="top">
<title>&zebra; data size and scalability</title>
<tgroup cols="4">
+ <colspec colwidth="1*" colname="feature"/>
+ <colspec colwidth="1*" colname="availability"/>
+ <colspec colwidth="3*" colname="notes"/>
+ <colspec colwidth="2*" colname="references"/>
<thead>
<row>
<entry>Feature</entry>
<row>
<entry>Data size</entry>
<entry>100 GB of record data</entry>
- <entry>&zebra; based applications have sucessfully indexed up
+ <entry>&zebra; based applications have successfully indexed up
to 100 GB of record data</entry>
<entry></entry>
</row>
<table id="table-features-platforms" frame="top">
<title>&zebra; supported platforms</title>
<tgroup cols="4">
+ <colspec colwidth="1*" colname="feature"/>
+ <colspec colwidth="1*" colname="availability"/>
+ <colspec colwidth="3*" colname="notes"/>
+ <colspec colwidth="2*" colname="references"/>
<thead>
<row>
<entry>Feature</entry>
<entry>Linux</entry>
<entry></entry>
<entry>GNU Linux (32 and 64bit), journaling Reiser or (better)
- JFS filesystem
- on disks. NFS filesystems are not supported.
+ JFS file system
+ on disks. NFS file systems are not supported.
GNU/Debian Linux packages are available</entry>
<entry><xref linkend="installation-debian"/></entry>
</row>
<row>
<entry>Unix</entry>
- <entry>tarball</entry>
+ <entry>tar-ball</entry>
<entry>&zebra; is written in portable C, so it runs on most
Unix-like systems.
- Usual tarball install possible on many major Unix systems</entry>
+ Usual tar-ball install possible on many major Unix systems</entry>
<entry><xref linkend="installation-unix"/></entry>
</row>
<row>
<para>
&zebra; has been deployed in numerous applications, in both the
academic and commercial worlds, in application domains as diverse
- as bibliographic catalogues, geospatial information, structured
+ as bibliographic catalogues, Geo-spatial information, structured
vocabulary browsing, government information locators, civic
information systems, environmental observations, museum information
and web indexes.
for details.
</para>
</section>
-
-
- <section id="future">
- <title>Future Directions</title>
-
- <para>
- These are some of the plans that we have for the software in the near
- and far future, ordered approximately as we expect to work on them.
- </para>
-
- <para>
- <itemizedlist>
-
- <listitem>
- <para>
- Improved support for &xml; in search and retrieval. Eventually,
- the goal is for &zebra; to pull double duty as a flexible
- information retrieval engine and high-performance &xml;
- repository. The recent addition of XPath searching is one
- example of the kind of enhancement we're working on.
- </para>
- <para>
- There is also the experimental <literal>ALVIS &xslt;</literal>
- &xml; input filter, which unleashes the full power of &dom; based
- &xslt; transformations during indexing and record retrieval. Work
- on this filter has been sponsored by the ALVIS EU project
- <ulink url="http://www.alvis.info/alvis/"/>. We expect this filter to
- mature soon, as it is planned to be included in the version 2.0
- release of &zebra;.
- </para>
- </listitem>
-
- <listitem>
- <para>
- Finalisation and documentation of &zebra;'s C programming
- &api;, allowing updates, database management and other functions
- not readily expressed in &z3950;. We will also consider
- exposing the &api; through &soap;.
- </para>
- </listitem>
-
- <listitem>
- <para>
- Improved free-text searching. We're first and foremost octet jockeys and
- we're actively looking for organisations or people who'd like
- to contribute experience in relevance ranking and text
- searching.
- </para>
- </listitem>
-
- </itemizedlist>
- </para>
-
- <para>
- Programmers thrive on user feedback. If you are interested in a
- facility that you don't see mentioned here, or if there's something
- you think we could do better, please drop us a mail. Better still,
- implement it and send us the patches.
- </para>
- <para>
- If you think it's all really neat, you're welcome to drop us a line
- saying that, too. You can email us on
- <email>info@indexdata.dk</email>
- or check the contact info at the end of this manual.
- </para>
-
- </section>
</chapter>
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