From: "Peter Marshall CCS UWO" <peter@julian.uwo.ca>
Subject: Updated swais.l man page
Cc: wais-talk@think.com
Organization: Relayed-by-Sendmail
Date: Fri, 8 Jan 1993 04:44:23 GMT
To: comp.infosystems.wais@julian.uwo.ca


I've done another revistion to the man page that I produced for swais.  I
think that it fairly matches the v5.1 release of swais. 

Here's the vtswais code to forstall any questions about it:
#!/bin/sh
# This is a shell script to run swais on a vt100 compatible screen (any
# of the VT series will do and also xterms.)  This needs to be used
# for VTxxx terminals on mips machines and for xterms on all machines to make 
# swais work reasonably well.
# Just type vtswais to get going.
# Peter Marshall 1992-01-02 15:59:57
#
PATH=/usr/local/bin:/usr/ccs/bin:/usr/bin:/usr/ucb:/bin
# PATH not exported since user's path should be used for commands within swais
#
# This converts all VT* terminals into one that works with swais...
# It leaves other terminal types alone.
TERM=vt100-nam
export TERM
swais

And the man page:

.TH SWAIS 1 "1992-12-04" "UWO"
.SH NAME
swais, vtswais \- a simple WAIS query front-end
.SH SYNOPSIS
.B swais [\-s sourcename] [\-S sourcedir] 
.B            [\-C common_sourcedir] [\-h] [keywords]

.B vtswais  [\-s sourcename] [\-S sourcedir] 
.B            [\-C common_sourcedir] [\-h] [keywords]
.SH DESCRIPTION

.B swais
is a curses-based, simple screen user interface for making WAIS queries.
This Simple WAIS interface is an basic access tool designed for those
focused on data retrieval and not computer operation. It provides most of the
functionality of the more complicated interfaces but features a simple and
potentially more natural interface for non-bitmapped screens.  The
functionality supported includes 
source selection, keyword entry, and automatic document retrieval.

There is currently no provision for relevance feedback based questions
nor is there a mechanism for storing questions to be asked again.
Remember, this is a simple interface!  

This software is fairly new and experimental.  You should expect a few
bugs.

vtswais is a special version of swais that forces your terminal type
to be a VT100 variant that works around a bug or two in swais.
Use it on all machines when  your terminal type is
set to xterm as it fixes a problem where the last page of a document
is cleared before it can be viewed.  You might want to try 
.B vtwais
if you encounter some other strangeness in the
.B swais
program.

.SH USING swais

When
.B swais
is first started, the "Source Selection" screen is displayed.  The
database source files displayed here are a combination of those in the system
source area and those that you have copied into your own
$HOME/wais-sources directory.  You must create this directory before
trying to save any database sources.

Select a database source (or source for short) by pressing the up and
down arrow keys to move the reverse-video bar (if available on your
terminal) over the source that you want and then pressing the
space-bar.  The selected source is marked with a star.  You can select
one or more sources for a search.  A control-V, control-D or K will
move you down a page of sources, <esc>v, control-U or J will move you
up a page.  The slash /<string> command can be used to search forward
for the next line with a given string in the sources display.

Type a "w" to move the cursor to the keyword list to be used in the
search.  Enter the keywords.  Use control-U to erase them and start
again, <rubout> to delete one character at a time.

Once you have typed your keyword list, type a <return> to do the
search of your selected sources using the keywords typed.

When your search is complete and there are some matches, a "Search
Results" screen is displayed.  It lists information headlines about
each matched entry.  The score column gives you a 1-1000 rating for
how "good" the match was.

To retrieve an entry, move the bar over it using the cursor keys (or
the slash search command or by number) and press the space bar.  The
document is retrieved and displayed using your PAGER.  To retrieve and
save or otherwise process a document use the vertical bar "|" command
to pipe the document to a program.  For example the command "cat
>/tmp/article" would save the retrieved document in the file
/tmp/article and the command "lpr" would send the item to your default
printer.  You can also use the "m" command to email a document.

When retrieving from a directory of source files (like the
directory-of-servers source) you can use the the "u" command to add it
to your list of personal sources instead of the "<space>" to view it.
Once the source has been added, it will appear in the "Source
Selection" screen.  (The source file will be copied into the
$HOME/wais-sources directory (which must exist!))

To return to select another source or to try different search terms,
use the "s"  (source) or "w" (word) commands. 

To exit from the program, type a "q" at the source selection or
results screen.  

.SH COMMAND LINE OPTIONS

The command line options can be used to customize or accelerate your
use of swais.  Most people just leave these out and interact directly
with the program.  See the previous section for details.

\fB\-s\fR is followed by a WAIS database source name. That name will be
selected and you will be immediately placed at the keyword prompt (if
no key words were entered on the command line).  Note that only one
database may be selected with the \fB\-s\fR command-line option.  The
last one mentioned on the command line is used.  (You can always add others
once you are inside the program.)

\fB\-S\fR is used to specify the directory to look for your own personal set
of WAIS sources.  This directory is also used to save (the Use
command) any new database sources that you may discover.  If you don't
specify this switch, $HOME/wais-sources is assumed.

\fB\-C\fR is used to specify the directory to use for the system-wide
database sources.  On our machines this defaults to
/uwo/ccs/share/lib/wais-sources.

\fB\-h\fR is used to print a summary of the command line options to stderr.

If a list of keywords is included on the command line they will be
used for your initial search.

.SH FILES
.ta 2.5i

.br
.Pbr
$(HOME)/wais-sources	location for personal sources.
.br
.Pbr
/uwo/ccs/share/lib/wais-sources
.br
	location for system-wide sources.

.SH BUGS

While \fBswais\fR works on non-VT100 screens, it isn't very good
looking unless the screen has some sort of high-lighting.  The program
uses highlighting to indicate the current selection and you will
require a fast eye to see which selection or document is the current
one if your screen doesn't implement reverse-video or some other form
of marking.

If you try to save (the \fBu\fRse command) a source without having a
$HOME/wais-sources directory, it looks as if the source is added to
your list, but in fact nothing is done and no error message is
generated.  Create this directory first.

The <esc>v command (for moving up a page) doesn't work on MIPS or Sun4
machines.  Use one of the alternative commands: J or control-U.

.SH SEE ALSO
.PP
xwaisq(1), xwais(1), waissearch(1), waisindex(1), waisserver(1)
.SH AUTHOR
Program by John Curran (jcurran@nnsc.nsf.net).

Third pass at a manual by Peter Marshall CCS, The University of
Western Ontario: <peter.marshall@uwo.ca>.
-- 
--
Peter Marshall, Manager (Academic Networking)
CCS, NSC, U. of Western Ontario, London, Canada N6A 5B7 (519)661-2111x6032