Search Content Sources

By Sveta Yerpilev , SharePoint Technical Consultant
Part 1 of 3 part SharePoint Search Customization series

SharePoint allows you to index (crawl) different content sources including:

· SharePoint Sites
· Web Sites
· File Shares
· Exchange Public Folders
· BDC content

Want to add a new content source to your search?

To add a new content source to your SharePoint server open the Central Administration of the server and enter the relevant Shared Services.

• Open the Search Settings page and open the “Content sources and crawl schedules” link.
• Click the “New Content Source” button and enter all relevant data for the source you want to add to your search.
• Press “OK”.

Congratulations!
You now have a new Content Source that will be crawled next time you run a Full or Incremental Crawl for it.

But what if you don’t want to crawl all sites under this Content Source?

You can exclude a web address from the crawl using Crawl Rules.

• Enter the Crawl Rules in the “Search Settings” page and add new crawl rule.
• Type in the URL you want to exclude or include from the crawl.

To check whether or not a URL will be crawled simply, type the URL in the URL text box on the Crawl rules page and click “Test”.

Coming next week:
Part 2 of the SharePoint Search Customization series: "Search Scopes & Contextual Search Scopes" where we will discuss defining different search scopes for your SharePoint search.

KWizCom Professional Services

www.kwizcom.com

How can I search for a specific field within a list?

By Roi Kolbinger, SharePoint Technical Consultant, KWizCom Corporation

I've been asked more than a few times how to search for a specific field within a list so I decided to write this brief guide to walk you through the steps.

The first step is to create a new list with a field, for example a status field -Open/Close.
Now we want to find, for example, via the search box, the fields with the status "open"…

This part is a bit complicated but don't worry! It's not too hard…

Go to the Properties List.

Now we need to index our field so that the search application will recognize our files.

Go to Indexed columns

Now Search will recognize our field.
Next we'll go to:
Central administration -> Shared Services -> SharedServices (Your SSP name) -> search settings -> Content sources

Click on your source and then on "Start Incremental Crawl" (Full Crawl is not necessary).

Now go to:
Central administration -> Shared Services -> SharedServices (Your SSP name) -> search settings -> metadata property mappings

Click "New Managed Property".

Click "Add Mapping".

Find you field, select it and then press OK.

Next - fill in the property name, description and chose your type (Text, Integer ...).

Now go to the search box on your site

Write the name of the field you are searching for and ":" space and the substance of the field you are searching for.

That all!

Now your search application will always be able to find the field within your list.

Global Assembly Cache (GAC) folder suddenly appears empty? Technical problem solved!

A few days ago I was working with Visual Studio and suddenly I was "under attack", a technical problem so persistent that I had to find an immediate solution.

What happened? Suddenly, the Assembly folder (AKA "GAC folder" located at C:\WINDOWS\assembly) appeared empty. In addition, I could not deploy or run any of my web parts.

I restarted my virtual machine, hoping that the assembly folder contents would miraculously reappear after rebooting. That did the trick but it turned out to be a very temporary solution. As I continued working this problem intensified, occurring and greater and greater frequency.
Eventually it happened at intervals of about 10 minutes and it became impossible to continue.

Searching for a more long-lasting solution I came across a forum where many other developers complained about the same problem.

The suggestion I found there was to disable the Indexing Service (located in Start -> Programs -> Administrative Tools -> Services).

I tried this and thankfully it worked! All I had to do is to stop the service in the “services” screen.



Thing is – this service has a knack for “magically” restarting itself every now and then, so if you want to make sure you've gotten rid of it for good – I suggest also changing its start-up type to “Disabled”.



Since I implemented these changes on my computer everything has returned to normal and I've been able to work in Visual Studio freely and easily.

Hope this helps,
Shai Petel