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

Here are the files that this web-site provides:

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.
handlebars-v1.1.2.js -- A local copy of the Handlebars templating library, since it doesn't like to be hotlinked.
mkws-complete.js -- A single large JavaScript file containing everything needed for MKWS to work: the widget-set itself, the API library, and the prerequisites jQuery and Handlebars.
mkws.css -- A stylesheet which styles only MasterKey widgets, and does not otherwise interfere with application-site's styles.

(This domain also hosts two web-service endpoints that are used by running MKWS-based applications: /service-proxy-auth is used to authenticate new sessions and /service-proxy/ is the main endpoint for searching and retrieval. But there is no need to use these directly: the widgets take care of that.)

Examples using the widget-set

It's worth viewing the source of these to see how small they are and how various things are done.

A very simple application at http://example.indexdata.com/.
The absolutely minimal application listed above.
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 JavaScript statement.
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.

Target maintainance

The set of targets provided by MKWS by default can be maintained using MKAdmin by users with appropriate credentials. Go to the main console and act as the "MK Demo" library administrator.