MiniVend allows you to pass a search in a
URL, as shown before. Just specify the search with the
special page parameter search or special page scan. Here is an example:
[page search="
se=Impressionists
sf=category
"]
Impressionist Paintings
[/page]
This is the same:
[page scan se=Impressionists/sf=category]
Impressionist Paintings
[/page]
Here is the same thing from a home page (assuming /cgi-bin/vlink is the CGI path for MiniVend's vlink):
<A HREF="/cgi-bin/vlink/scan/se=Impressionists/sf=category">
Impressionist Paintings
</A>
The two-letter abbreviations are mapped with these letters:
ac mv_all_chars bd mv_base_directory bs mv_begin_string co mv_coordinate cs mv_case cv mv_verbatim_columns de mv_dict_end df mv_dict_fold di mv_dict_limit dl mv_dict_look DL mv_raw_dict_look do mv_dict_order dr mv_record_delim em mv_exact_match er mv_spelling_errors ff mv_field_file fi mv_search_file fm mv_first_match fn mv_field_names hs mv_head_skip ix mv_index_delim lb mv_search_label lo mv_list_only lr mv_search_line_return md mv_more_decade ml mv_matchlimit mm mv_max_matches MM mv_more_matches mp mv_profile ms mv_min_string ne mv_negate ng mv_negate np mv_nextpage nu mv_numeric op mv_column_op os mv_orsearch ra mv_return_all rd mv_return_delim rf mv_return_fields rg mv_range_alpha rl mv_range_look rm mv_range_min rn mv_return_file_name rr mv_return_reference rs mv_return_spec rx mv_range_max SE mv_raw_searchspec se mv_searchspec sf mv_search_field sg mv_search_group si mv_search_immediate sp mv_search_page sq mv_sql_query sr mv_search_relate st mv_searchtype su mv_substring_match tc mv_sort_command td mv_table_cell tf mv_sort_field th mv_table_header to mv_sort_option tr mv_table_row un mv_unique va mv_value
They can be treated just the same as form variables on the page, except that they can't contain a newline. If you use the multi-line method of specification, the characters will automatically be escaped for a URL.
IMPORTANT NOTE: An incompatibility in earlier MiniVend catalogs is specifying [page scan/se=searchstring]. This is interpreted by the parser as [page scan/se="searchstring"] and will cause a bad
URL. Change this to [page scan se=searchstring], or perhaps better yet:
[page search="
se=searchstring
"]
cause a bad URL. Change this to C<[page scan se=searchstring]>.
You may specify a one-click search in three different ways.
[page scan se=Surreal/se=Gogh/os=yes/su=yes/sf=artist/sf=category]
Van Gogh -- compare to surrealists
[/page]
In this method of specification, to replace a / (slash) in a file name (for the sp, bd, or fi parameter) you must use the shorthand of ::, i.e. sp=results::standard. (This may not work for some browsers, so you should probably either put the page in the main pages directory or define the page in a search profile.)
[page scan
se="Van Gogh"
sp=lists/surreal
os=yes
su=yes
sf=artist
sf=category
] Van Gogh -- compare to surrealists [/page]
Any ``unsafe'' characters will be escaped. If you need to search for trailing spaces (unlikely) you must quote.
[page href=scan se="Van Gogh"&sp=lists/surreal&os=yes&su=yes&sf=artist&sf=category]
Van Gogh -- compare to surrealists
[/page]
Any ``unsafe'' characters will be escaped.