timescale of 'search-linuxkb'

["Hugo Rabson" <Hugo@www.nashville-now.com>]

12/16/1999    - use get-cnn.tcl's html-parsing code as the basis for
                a LinuxKB search page parser
12/20/1999    - v0.1 close to completion (simple searches only, so far)
12/27/1999    - v0.2 close to completion (simple/advanced searches)
              - v0.2 API documentation near completion
              - feature freeze for Xmas :^)
01/03/1999    - v0.2 program and API complete

v0.3 will have:-
    - drilldown?
    - elementary, tk-based UI

v0.6 will give applet-writers as many of the search engine's capabilities as
possible. It will grow with the search engine, hopefully reaching v1.0 by
March.

Desktop applets will talk to search-linuxkb using the API (which will be
well-documented). I've written very few UI-based apps for Linux, so I'm
hoping other programmers will write the applets & use search-linuxkb as
their API. (I'll write an anyway: I need the practice.)

I was going to write search-linuxkb in tcl, which would have allowed for a
tcl/tk interface very easily. However, I have more experience with C, so
I'll probably use that. I'm still in two minds about it, actually.
(Comments/suggestions?)

To retrieve the search engine's web page, I'll use Lynx or wget.

Eventually, there will be an RPM for search-linuxkb.

I'm working on the html-parsing code now; please find attached 'get-cnn.tcl'
tarball to see how it is used. (The script needs wget.) It's nowhere near
finished but it'll give you some idea of what I'm doing & how. Get-cnn and
search-linuxkb will probably be developed in parallel, using a lot of common
code. Eventually, I'll figure out what Microsoft did to Hotmail & then I'll
fix hotmole too: it was the only way AFAIK that MSN users could read their
email under Linux.

IMO, LinuxKB is a really cool project. :-) I'm looking forward to
contributing.


Hugo

get-cnn.tcl.gz