[tHE DSS]

Adding more search engines to this hack is really quick and easy. Just follow this guide.

First thing to do, is get the URL and parameters that the new search engine needs/takes.

Using hypedave's suggestion for Ditto.com as an example, I went to http://www.ditto.com, and did a search for footballs... this gave me the results, and from the address bar, I took the URL of :

http://ditto.com/search_results.asp?ss=footballs&viewstyle=compact

Look for your search string in the URL to get the search string parameter for that search engine.

Here, I looked in the URL for footballs. I see ss=footballs, so, the search string parameter for Ditto.com, is ss=

You may need to re-arrange the URL to work with this hack, as the search string parameter in this hack, needs to be the very last parameter in the URL. So, i've just moved this one, so the URL now looks like this (I did this in Notepad) :

http://www.ditto.com/search_results.asp?viewstyle=compact&ss=

... the search string parameter (ss=), is now the last parameter.

There is another parameter for Ditto.com, for viewstyle... I chose the "compact" for this example. You can see that in the URL.

Now, open up the 'websearch.php' script, and find the following :

PHP Code:

switch ($engine) {
    case "google" :
        doSearch("http://www.google.com/search?q=");
        break;
    case "yahoo" :
        doSearch("http://search.yahoo.com/bin/search?p=");
        break;
    case "altaVista" :
        doSearch("http://www.altavista.com/sites/search/web?pg=q&kl=XX&q=");
        break;
    case "excite" :
        doSearch("http://srch.excite.com/d/search/p/excite/?c=web&qcat=web&s=");
        break;
    case "lycos" :
        doSearch("http://search.lycos.com/default.asp?query=");
        break;
    default :
        outputStatus(-1);
} 


... after the last engine (lycos here), add this :

PHP Code:

case "ditto" :
    doSearch("http://www.ditto.com/search_results.asp?viewstyle=compact&ss=");
    break; 


... do ensure that you insert that underneath the 'break;' statement of the previous case statement, or you will have problems.

Save the 'websearch.php' file.

Now, you need to edit the 'search_the_internet' template.

In this template, find this :

<select name="engine">
<option value="google" selected>Search -> Google
<option value="yahoo">Search -> Yahoo
<option value="altaVista">Search -> Alta Vista
<option value="excite">Search -> Excite
<option value="lycos">Search -> Lycos
</select>

... after the last engine option (lycos here), add this :

<option value="ditto">Search -> Ditto

Save the template, and it works from that point.

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The only other thing to do, is if you are keeping search logs.

In this case, the statistics script won't recognise your new engine (ditto.com here).... it's not a problem whilst searching for logs, but the main stats page, where you get a count by engine, counts will show up as (Unknown Engine ... so, if you want it to actually tell you it's Ditto.Com, open up your 'stistats.php' file, and find the following :

PHP Code:

$engineName_array = array('google','yahoo','altaVista','excite','lycos');
$engineCount_array = array(0,0,0,0,0); 


.. then basically, add the search engine name, and set it's count to 0, by adding a new element to each array. For the above, we'll replace the above, with this :

PHP Code:

$engineName_array = array('google','yahoo','altaVista','excite','lycos', 'ditto');
$engineCount_array = array(0,0,0,0,0,0); 


... we've added 'ditto' to the engine name array, and set it's default count to 0, by adding a 0 to the engine count array. The script tallies up the counts as it reads them, at run-time... they should always be 0 in the script.

That's it... that's all you got to do.

Just make sure that when adding engines, you keep the engine's 'key value' consistent through-out each change... here, the keyword is simply 'ditto'... like in :

$engineName_array = array('google','yahoo','altaVista','excite','lycos ', 'ditto');

option value="ditto">Search -> Ditto

case "ditto" :
doSearch("http://www.ditto.com/search_results.asp?viewstyle=compact&ss=");
break;

I find that the most damndest part, is getting the search engines needed parameters... as somtimes, the only effective way of doing it, is viewing their page source, and looking at their HTML FORM keys.

Doing it the URL way though, should be fine for most of the time.

Happy searching.