Quote:
Originally Posted by nekokami
I probably won't be able to look at it until this weekend, but I'll try to give it a good workout then.  |
Here's something else to think about with this. It is possible to extend the
multi-directory search script to search the snippets and create result entries that are more than just symlinks to the matching PDF. The result could contain the title from the original PDF and the description can contain the context from the snippet that matches, including the page number of the match. It is possible to have multiple matches per PDF. Moreover the manifest can be crafted to open the PDF at the page number of match. I have tested each step necessary to do this, but have not got the whole lot together. All of this uses shell scripts and the stock awk and sed that comes with the iliad so there is no software to install, just the search script.
The snippet extraction plus search tool means the following work flow is possible:
- search for and download refs as PDFs (probably on a PC)
- copy refs to the iliad (CF, USB, internal memory, wherever)
- go find a nice comfy leather chair or bean bag, or sit in the park [important step]
- read and mark-up relevant parts of the PDFs
- go back to your PC and run the snippet script on the marked-up PDFs
- review the HTML version of the snippets quickly on the PC while writing; and/or
- search (possibly at a later date) the snippets on the iliad
Here's a screenshot of a match for the word "urban" in my test case. Both results are from the same original PDF, but relate to snippets from different pages. The page number of the match is in square brackets.
I am also starting to think about extending the logic of the searches and having a "combine" entry. It should be possible to make several searches and keep each set of results and then combine them (like the ovid command line syntax). This would mean you could:
- search for urban [result set 1]
- search for health [result set 2]
- search for transport [result set 3]
- search for migration [result set 4]
- then combine them by changing the description of the (yet to be created) combine script to:
- (1 and 2 not 3)
- (1 OR 4) and 2
I also need to give some thought to integration of the snippets with my main PC-based bibliography tool.