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WEBSONAR - Web Based Document Management System
WebSonar can provide web based document management for less than a penny a day per client. WebSonar is based on Virginia Systems' mainstream Sonar Professional text retrieval and document imaging systems for Macintosh and Windows 95/98/NT. This mature technology enables companies and governments to dynamically publish legacy documents, manuals, catalogs, databases and other archived materials by simply dropping their existing files into a folder.
The documents are searchable from any web browser at over 12,000 pages per second. Client editable, electronic "Post-It Notes" can be attached to any page and documents found with a search can be downloaded in their original format by simply clicking the Download button available from any page.
WebSonar brings many of the advanced searching features of the Sonar Professional search engine to the web. WebSonar also supports Apple's Sherlock technology and adds natural language Boolean, proximity, wildcard and synonym searching features to the client.
A WebSonar search result displays the page that contains the first occurrence of the search phrase, in the document that contains the most hits (relevant) and highlights the text phrase that was searched for. You can use the navigation buttons to go to any page, occurrence or document and to quickly find exactly what you are looking for by using words associated with the search phrase.
The Sonar Indexing function automatically creates a free form database from any group of text based documents. The indexed files can be constantly updated with new documents. The WebSonar search engine runs on the server and is linked to the client through WebSTAR, or AppleShare IP's, web server software.
WebSonar can be used in combination with TMSSequoia's ViewDirector Prizm Image Viewing Plug-in to dynamically serve documents containing large, complex image files and then use ViewDirector's plugin viewing tools such as; flying magnifying glass, image rotation, zoom, display quality settings, print marked selections, invert images, color smoothing, and more.
The implications of this technology are far reaching. All your documents can now be published and accessed from the Internet (with restricted or public access) cheaply and efficiently.
WebSonar is fast, secure, inexpensive, and easy to use. This software, which was originally developed in 1987 by Virginia Systems, Inc., has been steadily improved upon and refined over the past 10 years.
The Sonar Search Engine is currently used by companies and government agencies throughout the world including:
•US Department of Energy •Union Carbide
•US Department of Commerce •Dupont Merk Pharmaceuticals
•Radio Free Europe •The British Columbia Utilities Commission
•Apple Computer •The California Department of Justice
WebSonar Systems Cost Benefit Analysis
Small Business System Cost per Client:
1 SonarPro with 15 concurrent Internet users: Cost: $2,250.00
1 Macintosh Server Cost: $2,999.00
350MHz G4/1MB L2 cache
128MB SDRAM
20GB ATA hard drive
9GB Ultra 2 SCSI PC! card
DVD-ROM drive
10/100BASE-T Ethernet
AppleShare IP 6.3 Unlimited client License
Recommended Capacity: 1500 clients Total Cost per client: $3.50
Corporate System Cost per Client:
2 SonarImage with 25 concurrent Internet users: Cost: $4,090.00
1 Macintosh Server Cost: $3,999.00
400MHz G4/1MB L2 cache
256MB SDRAM
20GB Ultra 2 SCSI hard drive
Ultra 2 SCSI PC! card
DVD-ROM drive
10/100BASE-T Ethernet
AppleShare IP 6.3 Unlimited client License
Recommended Capacity: 2500 clients Total Cost per client: $3.23
Institutional System Cost per Client:
5 SonarPro with 50 concurrent Internet users: Cost: $10.000.00
2 Macintosh Servers Cost: $5,998.00
350MHz G4/1MB L2 cache
128MB SDRAM
20GB ATA hard drive
DVD-ROM drive
10/100BASE-T Ethernet
AppleShare IP 6.3 Unlimited client License
Recommended Capacity: 5000 clients Total Cost per client: $3.20
System Overview:
Sonar is a professional, high speed, document archiving and retrieval system for the Intranet/Internet. WebSonar is an asynchronous common gateway interface compliant application that requires a Macintosh running WebSTAR or AppleShare IP and at least 24 MB of memory. A larger memory configuration is recommended.
Documents are quickly setup for searching using the indexing feature in Sonar for either the Macintosh or Windows 95. Standard HTML files can also be used in their own libraries.
WebSonar is configured to allow a certain number of people to use the system at one time. Actually it has a fixed number of “slots” to keep track of all search commands. (One user can issue many different, concurrent, search commands.) Each time a user submits a new search command, WebSonar assigns it a slot. The slot keeps track of a user’s search results and watches for the next request from the user to look at the next page, next occurrence, next document, associated words, etc.
WebSonar has the information it needs to process each new request. When all of the slots are full, WebSonar frees the oldest slot and assigns a new search command to that slot. (The oldest slot is the slot which has not been accessed in the longest time.) Each time the user looks at another page of a found document, looks at another occurrence, or performs any other WebSonar command, their slot’s last access time is updated.
Each individual eLibrary can be set to allow document downloading and/or display only or editing of electronic Post-It notes, that can be “attached” to any page of the document.
Three Easy Steps to Publish Your Documents!
Step 1 - Place your documents in folders (directory) organized by group.
Step 2 - Launch the Sonar Index application to setup the files.
Step 3 - Launch WebSonar and use the Set Library Properties Menu to set the options.
Frequently Asked Questions:
Q. What are you using for a web server?
A. We publish WWW.WebSonar.com on an Apple Macintosh G4 Server with 256 megs of ram running System 9 using the HFS+ file format. The software includes AppleShareIP v6.3 for Web and File Services and WebSonar v3 for document publishing. We also run the SonarPro application with AppleScripts to automatically update our content.
We use Andreas Pardeike's Welcome plugin to host ten domains, SiteEdit Pro for administration, NetCloak for server side includes and NetForms for forms. We currently serve an average of 4,000 visitors per day. The AppleShare IP Web Services preferences are set to allow 150 concurrent clients.
Q. Can more than one user use WebSonar at the same time?
A. The software on this demo site is set to allow 100 concurrent connections. A single user may use more than one connection. We often have 50 people concurrently using WebSonar on our site with excellent performance.
Q. The server seems to be based on a Mac machine, do you support windows NT and can you automate document translation (MSOffice 95/97) to PDF?
A. The following are two options that can be provided for your situation.
1. You could use Sonar Professional NT to store and index your files on an NT server. The PDF translation would have to be automated on the NT server by your IT department. One Mac would be required to run the WebSonar and Webserver software. The Mac would be networked to the NT and would serve the files to the web browser clients. You could also access your content with the Sonar Professional software from any of the client stations.
2. A Mac server could be setup to recieve the files, do the translation to PDF, index and then serve the files to your clients.
Q. I have large documents (well over 1MB) that I would like to index without breaking them down into small document sections. Can I do this with WebSonar?
A. Yes. All documents are indexed with the Sonar indexing application complete, just as they are regardless of size. WebSonar displays documents to the client three pages at a time. The Bible (over 1000 pages) or any other large document can easily be browsed in this manner.
Q. Is there any way to schedule a daily update of Library items with WebSonar?
A. Yes, you can run the Sonar application in the background and use AppleScript to control the updating. Sonar concurrently, incrementally updates your files while WebSonar clients are searching the libraries. The next search after an update will automatically view the new content.
Q. What is the complete list of document formats supported and, can I index and search Adobe Acrobat (PDF) documents?
A. Currently supported formats are: Word, WordPerfect, MacWrite, WriteNow, RSG, PageMaker, QuarkXPress, FrameMaker, ASCII, and any format supported by Claris XTND. WebSonar version 3 supports PDF searching.
Q. WebSonar can have realm-protected *downloading* of documents, but not realm-protected searching. An intruder could post form data and search the library at will. Is this impression correct, or is there a way for WebSonar to accept authentication with the request?
A. We use "Pardeike's Welcome Plugin" to create a "Rule" that redirects any hijackers to another page. The WebSonar appplication on our server will only accept requests from the WebSonar folder located on our domain.
Q. I am particularly interested in ways of integrating database and text searches. Can I control the size of the "slice" delivered by WebSonar? Specifically, if I output my FileMaker pro databases as delimited text can WebSonar deliver record by record (page by page?), rather than in 32KB groups of records?
A. WebSonar always displays the first page that contains the currrent search phrase. If the document contains more than one page WebSonar will also display the following two pages. Sonar has a search option which allows documents to be logically divided into blocks or fields that can be used to limit your documents display to one page.
SONAR Professional - Search Engine Features
• Overview
Sonar Professional is a powerful multimedia document archiving and searching program.
Typical users of Sonar are law firms, government agencies, educational institutions, news services or anyone who wants to search vast amounts of information on a frequent basis.
Sonar is a powerful tool for searching all kinds of documents: Letters, manuals, transcripts, notes, etc.. Documents, unlike database files do not have their data in a predefined, rigid order. A document can consist of text, images, and QuickTime movies.
Sonar can simultaneously search any volumes connected to your computer, including networked volumes. This means you can use Sonar to search magazine articles, video tape transcripts, library card catalogs and reference documents at the same time.
• Summary of Features
Interface - Sonar permits straightforward, interactive operation for the user, and requires a minimum of computer knowledge. Sonar’s interface includes: Buttons for commonly used commands, retention of window position, size and status (opened/closed), and, when used with System 7 or later, help balloons, and support for AppleEvents and AppleScript.
Speed - Sonar can search in excess of 12,000 pages per second or 10 megabytes in about .5 seconds. Sonar’s high speed searching is logarithmic, so large increases in the amount of text being searched has a relatively small effect on search times.
Phrase selection - Words and phrases can be easily selected from the screen using the mouse, or typed from the keyboard.
Multiple phrase searching - Search phrases can be accumulated, allowing Sonar to search for all of the phrases at one time.
Complex phrases and Boolean searching - Sonar supports Boolean expressions and complex phrases. Boolean expressions add power to text searching by allowing Sonar to look for combinations of words. For example, a Boolean expression can find all documents which have the words “John” and “Doe”. Complex phrases are created by combining two or more Boolean expressions. A complex phrase can be easily generated to find all documents which have the word “computer” and either “United” and “States” within 4 words of each other, or “import” and “agreement” within 20 words of each other.
Wild cards - Sonar uses the asterisk (*) as a wild card character. “SON*” would match “son”, “SONAR”, and “song.” The wild card symbol matches “son” with anything that follows it. Wild cards can be placed at the beginning of a word, the end of a word, or on both sides of a word: ABC* (Find all words that start with “ABC”) *ABC (Find all words that end with “ABC”); *ABC* (Find all words that contain “ABC”)
Easy identification - Search phrases are boxed so that they can be quickly located on the screen. The name of the document, the page number and the number of “occurrences” are also displayed.
Search summaries, relevancy ranking - Sonar can produce three different search summaries using the Instant Index, Go To Document and Go To Occurrence commands.
Instant Index produces a breakdown of how many times each search phrase is found, in which documents it is found and on what page numbers. Go To Document produces a list of all documents found by the last search. This list, which can be ordered by relevancy, displays a break down of how many times the search phrase is found in each document and allows the user to go directly to a given document. Go To Occurrence produces a list of each occurrence of the current search phrase in context. Clicking on an occurrence displays the appropriate document and page where the occurrence appears. All three summaries can be optionally printed or saved to disk.
Saving information - Phrases can be saved on the clipboard. This feature is different than copying to the clipboard as the previous contents of the clipboard are not lost. The name of the document and the page number are automatically placed in front of each item before it is appended to the clipboard. The clipboard can be displayed, printed, saved and/or appended to a text file.
Global Font support - The font and font size in which a document is displayed is user selectable. All of Sonar’s windows use the specified font and font size.
Printing - Screen selections can be printed, as can all of the windows, including the clipboard.
Document Information database - Sonar has a built-in database system which keeps track of each document’s name, creation date, and various user defined fields. The database can be searched either independently or in conjunction with full-text searches. For example, by searching both the database and full-text, all documents which have the term “computer system” and were created after January 6, 1991 can be found.
Report generation - Sonar can generate a report containing all occurrences of a search phrase in context. Optionally, the entire document, and not just a piece of context, can be placed in the report. The report can be printed or saved. Each occurrence is identified with the name of the document and the page number where the occurrence is found. Other information, such as any comments associated with an occurrence or the total number of times the search phrase is found, can also be included in the report. Redundant occurrences can be eliminated, keeping the report as concise as possible. Search phrases can be shown in uppercase, making them stand-out in context.
Phonetic searching - Sonar can be directed to look for all words which sound similar. A search for “Mac/in/tosh/” would find “Macintosh”, “McIntosh”, or “McIntauch.”
Suspension - Sonar has a suspension capability, an important feature when the user wants to mark his place while temporarily researching another topic. For example, if the user is reading a paragraph containing the phrase “See sales report for April” and wants to look at the “April Sales Report” before continuing, he would go into the “suspend” mode by selecting “Mark Position”, select the phrase “April Sales Report” and then do a search. When the user is through looking at the April sales report, the “Restore Position” command returns the user to the previously marked place. Context switching - An extension of mark/restore, “Save Context” not only keeps track of the current search results, but also keeps track of which folders are being searched. After a “Save Context”, the user can select a different set of folders to search, perform various searches, and then “Restore Context” to return instantly to the previous set of folders and search results.
Predefined phrase searching - Searching for a large number of phrases on a regular basis can be simplified by storing the phrases in a text file. Like multiple phrase searching, Sonar can search for all of the phrases at one time.
Synonyms - Sonar can search for synonyms using either a synonym file created by the user, a built in thesaurus, or both. A search for {car} would also find “automobile”, “vehicle”, etc.
Associated Words - After a search, the “List Associated Words” command produces a list of all words which appear in close proximity to the search phrase. The number of times each word appears near the search phrase is also displayed. Associated words allows the user to quickly learn about a given subject. For example, after searching for “Diabetes”, the associated words list may include “insulin”, “sugar”, and “pancreas.” At the click of a button, the user could see “insulin” in context with “Diabetes”, or see all words associated with “pancreas”. The user can indicate whether associated words are to be found only on the left, only on the right, or on either side of the search phrase. The list can be viewed alphabetically or by frequency of appearance (relevance).
Notes - Using Sonar’s Notes window, the content provider can create notes which are “attached” to the document page being displayed on the screen. From then on, whenever that page of the document is visible, the associated notes appears automatically in the Notes window. Notes can be searched. When a note matching the search string is found, the note and the document and page associated with that note are displayed. Notes can also be used to generate a “topic” report. A topic report is a text only file which consists of each note containing a particular search string, along with the page associated with the note.
Graphics and movies - Sonar can display graphics and QuickTime movies in a separate “Image” window.
Relational searching - Sonar’s relational searching capabilities can determine how, or if, two phrases are related.
Product Description
WebSonar Personal Includes:
1 copy of Sonar (single user search engine) includes Indexer feature (used to setup your files) and 1 copy of WebSonar (single user document server)
Package Price: $395.00
WebSonar Pro Includes:
1 copy of SonarPro includes Indexer feature (used to setup your files) and 1 copy of WebSonar
Package Price: $895.00
The pricing structure is based on the number of concurrent users. The basic package includes one copy of the Sonar text retreival application, used to setup your files and to search the libraries from a local workstation, and one copy of WebSonar, used to publish your library files on the Web.
This configuration allows concurrent access of the library by one user from the workstation using the Sonar application and one user on the web using a browser.
Each additional concurrent user on the web or lan costs an additonal $100.00.
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