Dr. Peter Wielhouwer wrote:
Can I ask how these search strings interact with Legacy?
Or are these just ways to do customized searches at each respective website?
http://www.ellisisland.org/search/matchMore.asp?FNM=[FirstName]&LNM=[Surname]&first_kind=1
Legacy interacts by parsing (reading and interpreting) the string,
looking for tokens (or place holders) that it can substitute with data
from the current record. These tokens are defined in a standard fashion
throughout the product and are easily identified by being enclosed in
pairs of square brackets. In the above example, there are two such
tokens, namely: [FirstName] and [Surname]. That's the easy part :-) I
think there's a reasonably comprehensive list of these field names
somewhere in the help file.
Unfortunately, whilst there is a standard method for supplying data from
your client (Legacy) to a particular websites search engine, there are
no naming conventions within that standard. Consequently, every website
will use a different implementation of that standard.
The standard method of passing data is via keyword and value pairs.
Names such as FNN=, LNM= and first_kind= keywords in the above are
keywords. The values are either default values or what Legacy
substitutes into the string.
The art of constructing these strings is first in determining what
keywords each search page uses, and secondly how these map onto the
Legacy dictionary of field names. This requires a working knowledge of
HTML and access to some form of line tracing mechanism so that a record
of what data is passed between your browser and the Internet can be
ascertained.
Whilst the search strings themselves are relevant to Legacy, I would
suggest that the derivation of them is not. :-)
--
Regards,
Mike Fry
Johannesburg.
Legacy User Group guidelines:
http://www.LegacyFamilyTree.com/Etiquette.asp
Archived messages:
http://www.mail-archive.com/legacyusergroup@legacyfamilytree.com/
Online technical support: http://www.LegacyFamilyTree.com/Help.asp
To unsubscribe: http://www.LegacyFamilyTree.com/LegacyLists.asp
