Red-Piranha is an open source search system that can actually ‘learn‘ what you are looking for. It lets you go everywhere , find anything , understand everything. Because it is open source , it can integrate with any system. Because you can use it as a web page , command line or XML- WebService , it will work with most languages , including Java , Perl , C#/.Net and PHP. As a Java based program , it will run on any platform including Windows , Linux / Unix and Mac. SUGGESTED USES
Red-Piranha allows you to search information with a minimum of effort. With a little effort , it can search *anything* , including Oracle Databases , XML Webservices (including Java/J2EE and .Net webservices) , RSS and even Web based XML feeds such as Google and Amazon. GETTING STARTEDFirst of all download Red-Piranha from here. If you‘re not sure which one you want, download the ready-to-deploy (bin) file. The other files contain either the ready-to-deploy plus full source (bin_src_lib) or the source only (src).If you have not already installed Java and Tomcat , you can get them from the Sun Java and Apache Tomcat websites. Red-Piranha should work with Java 1.3 and Tomcat 3 , although we recommend Java 1.4 or higher and Tomcat 4/5. Unzip the file you have downloaded - there should be a file called RP.war. Copy this file into the the ‘webapps‘ folder of your tomcat. Within a number of seconds you should see a new folder called ‘RP‘ created. Congratulations - your copy of Red-Piranha has now deployed and is ready to use. USING RED-PIRANHATo use Red-Piranha - open your favourite web browser and point it at http://localhost:8080/RP . Within a few seconds , you should see the Red-Piranha start screen. This will have three items of interest
Examples of things we can add to Red-Piranha are
Adding information can take anything from a few milliseconds , depending on the amount of information being added. Once added, Red-Piranha will check on a regular basis to see if the information added has changed and re-index if required. Your information is now available to be searched. To do a search , put the item you want to search for into the textbox and press ‘search‘. Red-Piranha will show the search results on the screen. Clicking on the link beside the search results will show you the original information (as long as you have access to it). From version 0.3 onwards , Red-Piranha can ‘learn‘ what search results you are interested in an improve your future searches. To give Red-Piranha feedback and help it ‘learn‘ what you are interested in , click on any of the links on the ‘search results‘ page. Red-Piranha makes a note of your choice , which is used to adjust the search results later. SPREAD THE WORDIf you‘re using Red-Piranha , the let us know. Even better, tell your friends. Email everybody you know. Put it on your website (feel free to link to http://red-piranha./). Include it in your latest blogs. Anything that you do to spread the word will help us (a lot). Thanks.Either way (good or bad) , drop us a line on the users mailing list. MAKE IT BETTERAlready , you can do a lot with Red-Piranha. We would like your help to make it do a lot more. You can help a little , or you can help a lot - it‘s your choice. Some things that we would find very useful:
For more information , send an email to either the project admins or the developer mailing list. If you‘re interested in playing with the technologies , here is a list of what Red-Piranha uses under the covers. Thanks to everybody involved in these projects , as we wouldn‘t have been able to get this far without you.
For more information on the structure of Red-Piranha , what it does , and how it does it , a useful point to start is the Specification / Architecture Document. |
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