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Surf3D - Frequently Asked Questions I installed Surf3D in the suggested location. But where is it? How does the Surf3D Screensaver work? What is the Force Chain True Timer? What does each Toolbar icon control on the main graphic display window do?WARNING on hard drive memory usage How do I get rid of collected picture and text files I do not want? (House cleaning) How can I open the Surf3d Editor Module? How do I use an Agent online while in the Editor? How do I best view the graphical display? How do I set up the Captions for an Agent? How can I highlight any particular cyberspace node? How do I modify a graphical cyberspace view (simple)? How do I modify a graphical cyberspace view (complex)? How do I navigate the 3D view display using flight simulator mode? How do I hide the graphical cyberspace network display while running an Agent? How do I customize the color coding of the graphical display to match certain URLs or URL titles? What is the Display control panel KEY section for? What is the Display control panel ZOOM (and Display type) section for? What is the Display control panel GRID section for? What is the Display control panel ROTATION section for? What is the Display control panel CONNECTOR section for? What is the Display control panel NODE section for? What is the Display control panel METRIC RANGE section for? Using the Digit Size control slider: Using the View Angle control slider: How do I use the Cloaking controls? How do I create my own agent from scratch (simple)? 2. Check your Report format settings: 3. Check your Network Options: What are the different Network Options? Operations settings, and what do they each mean, and when do I need to use them? Confine Search to Basic URL Names Use Cache if the Network Fails What is the Initial Referrer line in the Network Options panel? What is the I.D. line mean in the Network Options panel? What are Surf3D’s current limitations? How do I set up different agent Start conditions in the agent Configuration panel? What are the different Early Finish settings in the agent Configuration panel? How do I set up different agent Finish conditions in the agent Configuration panel? How do I limit the number of web page nodes to be searched in the agent Configuration panel? How do I use the RETRY scheduling function in the agent Configuration panel? How do I set up the agent Final Actions in the Configuration panel? How do I set up the agent Email alerts in the agent Configuration panel? What are other Final Actions in the agent Configuration panel? How can I use the agent Chaining feature in the Configuration Panel? (advanced users only) Do chained agents preserve Password protection? What are the Cull Nodes controls, and how do I use them? How do I Cull the Number of Titles to be displayed? How exactly does Surf3D execute its Online Search? (advanced users only) Is there any Spyware in Surf3D? When will version Surf3D 1.0 be released? Where can I see a concise list of all of Surf3D’s features? When I press the L key (lower case) on the keyboard, a Log window opens – what is this for? What additional features will Surf3D 1.0 contain? Will Surf3D 1.0 provide an API (Applications Programmer Interface) to customize new display types? Is there a professional version of Surf3D for Intranets and enterprise use? My question hasn’t been answered here in this F.A.Q. How do I contact you to ask it? I have found a bug in the software! Who do I report it to? I would like to offer some suggestions. Who do I email?
Right click the mouse on it and create a Shortcut. Drag the shortcut icon to the desktop. The Beta version does not install Surf3D into the Program Start menu. Moving it further to the right will keep each view on screen longer before changing to another view. When the Randomize Timer is on, it will generate random views of cyberspace based on the agent module database, and will also randomly insert any of the 8 saved views that are provided within each agent (click Edit Module and open the graphical display screen enough to see the toolbar buttons 1 through 8). When you launch an agent module, the first window that opens is the graphical display window, which has a toolbar of icons across the top. You can roll-over the mouse cursor on the main toolbar icons, and a short sentence of each toolbar command will pop-up. The main toolbar situated over the graphical display window is comprised of 5 sets of icons. From left to right, a brief functional overview: The first set of 5 icons are for Agent Module custom set up (see below). The second set of 4 icons are for Agent Module online runtime control (see below). The third set of 4 icons are for Agent Module related files access and notes (see below). The fourth set of 2 icons are for Agent Module -to- Web Browser actions (see below). The fifth set of 8 icons are for saved 3D animated web network views (see below). The first set of 5 icons are for Agent Module custom set up, including: X icon: Agent Search keywords set up, navigation set up and search status control panel. A icon: Format Settings panel for HTML reporting and display view captions. N icon: Network Options control panel for basic online preferences. Magnifying Glass icon: Agent Configurations control panel for start and finish conditions, capture actions, email alerts, and agent chaining. Three Dot icon: 3D display animation view, navigation settings and cursor control panels The second set of 4 icons are for Agent Module online runtime control, including: Right Arrow icon: Starts the agent online search. Double Bar icon: Pauses the agent online search. Box icon: Stops the agent online search. Curly Arrow icon: Resumes or continues the agent online search. The third set of 4 icons are for Agent Module related files access and notes, including: Folder icon: Opens the file browser to the default Surf3D agent library. Floppy Disk icon: Saves the current agent settings and gathered node network to disk Page icon: Opens the HTML Report based on Format Settings (see A icon) Question Mark icon: Opens the saved agent Notes in Windows Notepad The fourth set of 2 icons are for Agent Module -to- web browser actions, including: E Page icon: Opens the web browser to the web page that is the highlighted 3D node. G Arrow icon: Captures the URL from the web browser and starts the agent run. The fifth set of 8 icons are for saved 3D animated web network views, including: Number icons 1 through 8: Switches to the saved 3d graphical display views. Seeing saved web displays on the screensaver is nice, but how do I make it go online AS a screensaver? We recommend that you become familiar first with manually using agents online before you use Surf3D to go online while in screensaver mode? Why? Because the Editor is where you can interact with the graphical display, see how it is set up, customize any agent for some new use, test it to make sure it is working the way you want, and get a sample report. The screensaver will kick in (based on your delay to start settings). Open the Surf3D folder in the Program Files folder. Open the Library folder. Inside the library folder are all the agent modules and their associated files. Go to the agent folder you want to houseclean, open the folder, then open the File folder. Select all, or highlight all files with your mouse, and press the Delete key on your keyboard. This will send all the collected files to the Recycle Bin. If you also want to throw away the collected text, open the Data folder and so the same. Open the Editor via the screensaver control panel. Open the editor by double clicking on Nav8.exe executable. Open an agent module into the Editor by double clicking on an agent module .XO file extension executable. How do I use an Agent online while in the Editor? Using your browser, go to the eBay site, and using the eBay search tool, type in what type of auctions you are looking for. Alternatively you can select any eBay category using their category directory. In either case, once you have submitted your search or clicked on your preferred category, you will see the results in the browser. Make any other preference selections you want at eBay, such as sorting by Price, or by Ending first, etc. Once you see the results hit list in your browser you can start using Surf3D: There are different ways to run the agent. The most simple is to run the agent, by double clicking on the icon. This will automatically get the URL from your browser and begin drilling down into the eBay search hits. The agent will collect pictures and text and info regarding the number of bids and current price. Before running the agent check what the number of search results are from eBay, and you may like to allow the agent to drill into all of the or only a portion of the results. Once the agent module has completed its run, open the Report by clicking on the Report –page- icon in the graphical display toolbar window. If you want the HTML report to open automatically once the agent has finished, click on the -magnifying glass- icon to open the agent Configuration window, and click to select the Report on the Finish Actions section of the control panel. For more information, click on the -?- question mark icon in the main graphical display toolbar and documentation on the particular agent will appear. More complex use agents: many agents require a little more set-up before they can be used. For example if you want to search the BBC News site for articles on a topic that is different than the current topic of the war on terrorism, you need to modify the agent. For example, go to the BBC news site. Type in some search terms into their search box. When the results are returned, there will be a new URL in your browser. Open from the Surf3D library folder the BBCNewsAgent_1.XO agent. See the built in documentation for that agent by clicking on the -?- icon in the toolbar for that agent. Next, Save-As the agent to a new name if you want to preserve the agent set-up we supplied for the BBC. Click on the –X- icon in the graphical display toolbar. This opens the Agent main word term Search set up panel. To briefly familiarize yourself with the different controls in this panel click on the -?- in the upper right hand corner of this control panel which will add a -?- to your cursor. Move the cursor over any control or entry line and click. A short description of the documentation for that control feature will appear. This can also be done on two other major control panels in the software (Display control panel –three dot- icon, and the agent Configuration control panel –magnifying glass- icon). To modify the BBC agent, for example, you need to add a keyword to the -ALL of- text entry line (the logical Boolean AND), and leave the –ANY of- text line with only the text "GMT". Now look at the three Metric A, B and C text entry lines at the bottom of the Agent Search set up control panel window. You can highlight and erase the entries already present and now type in as many words as you like into each metric line (up to about 50 words per Metric maximum). It is desirable to enter words that relate to a common category of relevance you want to have indicated, and there are 3 categories of words, one for each Metric, that you can enter. The words entered will be counted when found to be present in any web page news article that Surf3D drills into. The counts will be saved for that web page and stored in the results which you can later use to alternatively rank collections of articles. In the supplied example, there was a focus on three general categories of words related to the war in Afghanistan, which includes general war terms, prisoner related issues, and war action related terms. When the search has been executed the different display can emphasize articles with higher counts of desired word terms. How do I best view the graphical display? We recommend that you go ahead and maximize the graphical display screen. This lets you more easily separate all the text flags that may present on different nodes. Text flags and different views can be selected by clicking on toolbar buttons labeled 1 through 8 on graphical display, which will show saved views for the agent. If you want to better understand what you are looking at, we advise you use the pull down menu on this display and select Caption. This will provide a brief mention of what each display view is showing. How do I set up the Captions for an Agent? Click on the –A- icon, which is used to format the HTML report, and set up captions for views. At the bottom of the agent Format control panel you can enter a Title for the agent, and an overall category name for words you typed in each Metric line (A, B, and C). Metric Sum text entry line is also available if there is another overall category that subsumes the 3 categories, or you can leave it blank. How do I navigate the 3D view display from the supplied agents or from a new cyberspace display that is created while I run (or continue running) an agent? When any Surf3D agent module is opened, there is a toolbar above the graphical display which opens different control panels and execute key runtime and file commands. To best navigate a saved network display view, first select view 1 through 8 on the toolbar. The graphical view shown in the window may have existing captions which can be turned on using the pull down menu and selecting Caption. Each view can be navigated in a number of ways. The most simple is to use the mouse to point at any node in the chosen view. Each node, whether sphere, cube, or bar or pyramid can be highlighted by using point and click with the mouse. Place the mouse cursor over the display view and click down the left mouse button. The display animation will temporarily freeze, and all the node colors will change. While you drag the mouse while keeping it clicked down, different nodes and shapes will highlight. As each node highlights, and you right-click the mouse on it, if there is a text flag associated, it will also display. Once a node is highlighted you can release the mouse click-down and the node will remain highlighted and the display will return to normal animation and colors and text flags. How can I highlight any particular cyberspace node? By pointing and clicking on the display window node (see preceding navigation explanation). Another way to highlight a particular node is to open the Display control panel by clicking on the second control panel window behind called Cursor. You can click and drag the slider on the Cursor Position left portion of the panel. Dragging the slider down and up will sequentially highlight each node, up to a hundred nodes fro the left 1X slider. Incrementing the 100X slider down a single increment will set the fine control 1X slider to the nest 100 hundred nodes. The Cursor Position sliders can highlight any node up to the 5000th node limit. As any node is highlighted the full length text flag will be shown and remain showing. Once I have highlighted a cyberspace page node in the display, how do I open the browser to that web page? By pressing the Space Bar on your computer keyboard. This will launch the browser or open a new browser window to the page that corresponds to the highlighted node. How do I modify a graphical cyberspace view (simple)? Open the Display control panel by clicking on the –three dot- icon on the toolbar. Two windows will display, one for Display modification and one for Cursor control. The Display control panel window, has numerous features. To familiarize yourself with the Display control panel features, click on the -?- in the upper right hand corner of the panel, and a -?- will be added to your mouse cursor. Move the mouse cursor over any Display panel control and click down and a short description of the functions of that feature will appear. You can change any setting by clicking on different radio buttons or by moving sliders and see how it affects the display being viewed. If you make a new display that you prefer you can click on the Save View button in the upper right hand corner of the panel and assign the view to one of the 8 view buttons on the graphical display window. Be sure to remember which view number you are currently editing, since as soon as you click the Save-View button, the toolbar button previously highlighted will disappear. Only 8 views can be saved per agent. How do I modify a graphical cyberspace view (complex)? Open the Display control panel by clicking on the –three dot- icon on the toolbar. Take a few moments to familiarize with the different Display control panel features by clicking on the -?- in the upper right corner of the panel. This will activate a -?- icon next to the moving cursor. When you click on any feature radio button, checkbox, or slider a short description of its functions will appear in a pop-up text window. The Display control panel is divided into several sections. Please see additional FAQs relating to this below. How can I navigate, track and stay locked on the current node being evaluated while the search is being run? Open the Display control panel by clicking on the –three dot- icon on the toolbar. First, click on the checkbox for Tracking in the lower left quadrant of the panel. Second, click on the second panel control window called Cursor, and advance the 100X slider to the bottom of the display. These two actions will assure that when the agent module is gathering and running that the current page node being visited on the web will be always centered on the graphical display. As new nodes are added or evaluated, the display will re-center on the current node being evaluated. If you want to know what the URL for that node is presently, click on the –X- icon on the main display toolbar to open the agent module Search set up and status panel. The third text line from the top shows the URL being currently evaluated. How do I navigate the 3D view display using flight simulator mode? Open the Display control panel by clicking on the –three dot- icon on the toolbar. Click on the Flight Sim checkbox. The moment you do that it may appear that the display view has disappeared, but in fact it may just be out of view. Move the mouse cursor up and down or left to right to orient yourself. The Flight Simulation navigation mode opens at zero velocity (the computer keyboard –0- [zero] key), so you can pan up and down or left and right to get oriented. To begin forward motion, you must select a velocity by using computer keyboard numbers 1 through 9 (fastest). Start by pressing the number 5 key for example. To commence motion in your preferred direction just point the mouse cursor and press down the right mouse button. Pressing the right mouse button freezes your motion. While the display is frozen, you can grad the cursor over any node to point and click highlight that cyberspace page node. If you want to open the browser to that web page, press the computer keyboard Space Bar. The Zero key stops any motion in its tracks. Moving the mouse upwards makes you descend (relative to your current position), and moving the mouse downwards makes you ascend, just like an airplane steering control. Moving the mouse to the right banks you to the right. Moving the mouse to the left banks you to the left. How do I hide the graphical cyberspace network display while running an Agent? Open the Display control panel by clicking on the –three dot- icon on the toolbar. Click on the Cloaking checkbox in the lower left hand corner of the display. It generates a star field pattern, and if you press the keyboard letter ‘E’ (lower case) it will generate a different Lissajou pattern each time you press the letter E. This is used in Randomize Timer mode in the screensaver to generate occasional non-starfield animations. When the agent is stopped the pattern color is red, and when it is running online the pattern color is green. (see: How do I use the Cloaking controls?) How do I customize the color coding of the graphical display to match certain URLs or URL titles? Open the Display control panel by clicking on the –three dot- icon on the toolbar. Click on the SETTINGS button in the upper left hand quadrant of the Display control panel. This opens a sub-window for Color Assignment. The default settings for color assignment are Domain types, including .com, .gov, .net, .edu, .org, and .mil. If you want to customize the assignments for different purposes, just type into each line any portion of a URL you want to assign the standard six available colors to. If you want to color assign nodes based on URL title text, click on the Title checkbox. For example, someone may wish to discriminate between different portions of a single website. What is the Display control panel KEY section for? The KEY section (upper left), for Color keying, Size keying and Metric keying. Includes: The ability to key the graphical display to Boolean evaluation status (True, False, Unknown), Domain color assignments, number of links associated with a web page, three separate Metric channels, and a Metric sum channel key. On the left side of the KEY section are the Color radio buttons, and on the right side are the Size buttons. Experiment with these radio buttons and watch how it changes the display. The Randomize Timer in the screensaver will select different combinations at random. If you have captions entered into the Format window entry (-A- icon on the main display toolbar), and you have selected the caption to be on (pull down menu, select Caption), then as you change the radio button settings for the Metrics you will see which category you are highlighting for visual emphasis. At the bottom of this section is an untitled slider which controls the KEY section Metric color shift and brightness factor, with brighter to the right. What is the Display control panel ZOOM section for? The ZOOM section (upper right) includes both a standard Z-axis zoom control and selectors for the different basic display types and styles. The display types include: SPHERE which provides a 3D radial fan; FAN which provides a standard conical 3D fan display; CUBE which distributes the web pages nodes based on domain and file path text to coordinate calculation; ZONE which layers the web nodes according to the domain SETTINGS control set up in the KEY section; SPIRAL. Spiral is a display type is activated by clicking on both the MET checkbox and the ZONE checkbox. The –A- slider controls the spiral diameter. The –B- slider controls the spiral curl rate, and the Metric Range slider (middle left just under the KEY section) controls the spiral height. What is the Display control panel GRID section for? There are three radio buttons in the GRID (middle upper right) section. The graphical display can be set up to have no grid by selecting the OFF button, or have a 4x4x4 sectioned grid by selecting the –1- radio button, or just have a cubic boundary by selecting the –2- radio button. What is the Display control panel ROTATION section for? The ROTATION section (middle right) includes an X, Y and Z animation rotation rate in the upper portion, and the X, Y and Z Position sliders in the lower portion set up absolute orientation point of view into the network. You can null the rotation rates by clicking on the –0- button in this section. Click on the -<<- button to reverse all the rotations. Click on the -||- button halts the rotation as well (same as –0- button in this Beta software release). The buttons labeled 1 through 8 in this section set the absolute positions of X, Y and Z to only several different preset variations in the Beta release. However you can adjust the absolute position to any point of view using the Position sliders. What is the Display control panel CONNECTOR section for? The CONNECTOR section (upper right) includes controls for changing the node connectors. The –B- button includes back connections to nodes that have already been visited but are also linked to new nodes (this can get the display node connections quite crowded so it is left off as default). There are three types of connectors selected using the radio buttons: -Line- which provides single pixel width lines no matter what zoom factor, -2- which select connector flange in two axes, and –3- which selects connector flanging in 3 dimensions. To see the best 3D flanges use –3- radio button in this section. The slider bar controls how fat the conical flange connectors are. The three radio buttons for True, Visited and All select which node connectors will display. The True radio button shows only the True node connections which is the most pruning. The Visited shows both True and False evaluated node connectors, and All shows True, False and Unknown node connectors all together. What is the Display control panel NODE section for? The NODE section (lower right) includes has controls for sizing nodes and text flags for the nodes. The Title slider when set to the far left turns off all text flags (except for the navigation highlighted node). Moving the Title slider to the right increases how much text length is displayed as attached to any node. The choice of which nodes to be visible is controlled by the True, Visited and All node radio buttons. The True radio button shows only the True nodes which is the most pruning. The Visited button shows both True and False evaluated nodes, and All shows True, False and Unknown nodes together. The True node slider sizes the Boolean true nodes. The False node slider sizes the Boolean false nodes, and the Unknown node slider sizes the Boolean unevaluated nodes. The Point radio button render the nodes with pixel points only. The Line radio button renders the nodes with outlines. The Fill radio button renders the nodes as solid. What is the Display control panel METRIC RANGE section for? The METRIC RANGE section (lower and middle left) includes a host of different controls for display set-ups. The Metric range slider controls the height of bars or pyramids when the Bar Graph box is checked. Using the Bar Graph Controls: The Bar Graph checkbox, when selected, the layout of the 3D display type selected in the ZOOM section will be shadow cast to the 2D cubic space floor. When selected as On, the Bar Graph retains the geometric placement of the display type as selected in the ZOOM section in its orientation, but converted from 3D into a 2D flat projection. The Bar Graph, when selected, has its projections of spires, pyramids, blocks, or pins sized by using the Metric Range slider control – further right increases the 3D height of the bars. The Bar Color checkbox inverts the bar color scheme. The Bar width are modified using the NODE section sliders, which are double-dutied for Bar shaping. When in Bar Graph mode, and when the Node POINT radio button is selected, the Node TRUE slider controls the Bar BASE width for all bars equally. When the Node POINT radio button is selected, the Node FALSE slider controls the Bar TOP width for all bars equally. When the LINE radio button is selected, the Node True slider controls the Bar BASE width for all bars with base widths determined by the metric channel value selected in the KEY section. When the Node FILL radio button is selected, the Node True slider controls both the Bar BASE and TOP width for all bars equally (so only rectangular skyscrapers are produced), and with the relative width determined by the metric channel value selected in the KEY section. The Node UNKNOWN slider controls the Bar outline accent fringe width for all bars equally. The Bar Color checkbox inverts the bar fringe and body colors. Using the Digit Size control slider: This slider adjusts the size of the node Digit display. When the slider is set all the way to the left, the digit display is off. If the Flat checkbox is selected, then the digit display is flat and always is pointed towards the user point of view, regardless of rotations. When the Flat checkbox is not selected the digit display is provided as a four sided box with the same digit on all four sides of the box placed on node. This applies to Bar Graph mode or alternate ‘floating’ 3D display mode. Using the View Angle control slider: The View Angle slider produces a fish eye effect on the whole display. The farther to the right the slider is set, the more pronounced the fish eye hyperbolic effect. The normal view setting for standard 3D perspective is to set the slider exactly one quarter way to the right (the first notch mark). When you accentuate the View Angle slider to about 3/4 to the right, the display view will recede considerably. To correct for this, use the Zoom control slider on the top right of the panel and zoom in. This way you can create a view where it appears your point of view is located right inside the model, not outside looking in. Using the Vista Control slider: The Vista slider controls the vertical height of the point of views, that is, the Y position of the user point of view relative to the 3D rendering space. The tracking checkbox, when selected, centers the highlighted node to the center of the user point of view, i.e. the center of the screen. To use the Tracking mode, you can point and click at any node and the screen will center on that node, as well as the rotation will center on the highlighted node. Tracking mode can be used during live agent runs online. (see "How can I navigate, track and stay locked on the current node being evaluated while the search is being run?") The Fan Ring checkbox adds a fine spaced pixel width point ring around any conical fan while using the display type for FAN. Using the Solid Floor checkbox: Creates a solid floor in middle gray color, which is sometimes useful with Bar Graph mode. How do I use the Cloaking controls? The cloaking controls allow the user to disguise the network display from prying eyes, if desired. Selecting the Cloaking checkbox shows a starfield pattern which can modified using various double-dutied controls. The Node Unknown slider increases the number of stars (to the right is more stars). The Node False slider increases the length of star streaks (to the right is longer streaks). The Node True slider shifts the cloak color from reddish to white (to the left is more white). It generates a star field pattern, and if you press the keyboard letter ‘E’ (lower case) it will generate a different Lissajou pattern each time you press the letter E. This is used in Randomize Timer mode in the screensaver to generate occasional non-starfield animations. If you want your agent during screensaver mode to only show a single cloaked starfield view you must use the Display control panel and Save View to only View #1, and second, make sure the Randomize Timer slider in the screensaver Settings panel is set to the far left (off).
How do I customize the main Agent Search set-up window? Each agent supplied with the software can be modified by opening the editor Nav8.exe. The editor opens with a graphical display panel topped by a toolbar of icons. To start with, look over the brief documentation on the particular agent by clicking on the -?- icon in the toolbar. Now open the main agent Search set up panel by clicking on the –X- icon. The existing agent will have various settings already in use. Save-As the agent module to a new name (or Save-As-Empty, - only the network is thrown out, the settings are retained), and then re-open the Search set up panel for the newly saved agent module. AND/OR line keywords: In modifying an existing agent for use at the same web site and for the same basic purpose, all you need to do is look at the word terms present in the –ANY of- and -ALL of- text lines (which are the Boolean OR and AND lines respectively) and enter your own terms. If there are no terms present, and just one term is present, like ‘GMT’ in the -ANY of- that term may be used to cue collecting text from a certain point in the document. In that case do not modify it. Metric channel word counts: The next step is to change the word terms present in the Metric A, B and C text entry lines to be words that fit the subject or topic you are searching. The terms do not have to be present in the web pages you search and the three Metric channels A, B and C are used to count word incidence in the individual web pages searched. Enter your own terms into each Metric. Use each Metric channel as a category of words, such as politics, economy, and education for instance. You would place words related to politics in the first channel, words related to economy in the second, and so forth. Once done, and after you have run the agent and collected a network of web pages and related word count (or numeric count) statistics, you can instantly regenerate and re-rank the Report results according to each different metric, or a sum of all the metrics. This way you get to focus on different categories of results within your original search which you may have initiated from Google or ABC-News, etc. For example, you could search BBC News web site for news articles. Your search term you entered in your browser at the BBC site might be ‘terrorism’. You will get a lot of news hits on that subject unfortunately. If you have entered a group of sub-topic words into the Metric channels, you can sort or rank the articles from the BBC according to those sub-topics. Subtopics could include a group of words typed into Metric A for domestic Homeland security, words typed into Metric B relating to armed forces activities abroad, and words typed into Metric C could relate to alerts, threats, and breaking news. Number extraction: You can modify the agent to collect a number in a particular location on the screen. For brief documentation details on how to use this more advanced feature click on the -?- in the upper right hand corner of the agent Search set up and tracking window (click on the –X- icon on the far left of the main graphical display toolbar). After clicking on the -?- a question mark will appear attached to the mouse cursor. Now click on the text entry line for Metric A, and that will show you instructions on how to set up different numeric counts. Text sentence extraction: You can assign words you have entered into the Metric A line for example to be used to only collect sentences from the web page that contain words from that line. It works on a left to right basis, so place your most important keywords you want to use to key text sentence extraction, on the far left of the list. The Beta Surf3D release only collects up to a 1000 bytes of text per web page, and so the additional words in the Metric A list may not be used to key text sentence extracts if the first words have used up the 1000 byte allotment. Capturing pictures and files: Another component of modifying an existing agent module to search differently on the same website, is to open the agent Configuration panel by clicking on the –magnifying glass- icon on the main toolbar over the graphical display. This opens the agent Configuration panel. Here you can modify whether or not you are collecting particular file types, such as JPEGs or GIFs or PDF’s for example. Point and click on the -?- in the upper right hand corner of the Configuration panel and a question mark will accompany the mouse cursor. Now click on any entry box, radio button or checkbox and a short description of the agent module action functions will pop up. To create you agent from scratch on a web site is easy if you want to only spider down into the web site and get keyword counts using the Metric channels. Just Save-As-Empty (or just Save-As) the Demo2.XO agent module (for example) to a new agent module name. See the sequence of steps outlined below: 1. Set up your Search terms: Click on the main toolbar –X- icon to open the Search set up and tracking control panel. In the Search set up and tracking panel, you can familiarize yourself with the different controls by clicking on the -?- icon in the upper right hand corner of the panel, and then clicking on any button, checkbox or text entry line. In this panel, remove any terms in the LINK TEXT, EXCLUDE and INCLUDE lines. If you want the agent to stay within the domain of the website, click the -Stay in Domain- checkbox. When your web browser is open to the web page you want to start at, click the GET URL button on the far right of the control panel. This will import the URL address from your web browser to Surf3D. Next, enter any keywords you want into the –ANY of- Boolean search text line. Enter any sub-topic group of words into each of the Metric channels A, B and or C. If the web site is about health, then enter subtopic words you are interested in about health. For advanced description of the search operations see: How exactly does Surf3D execute its Online Search (for advanced users only)? 2. Check your Report format settings: Click on the –A- icon on the main toolbar. You may want to type in some caption terms and choose a ranking method here. You can also select whether to show images or text in the report and whether to show False pages in the report. A False page is one where none of your keywords in the –ANY of- text entry line have been found on the page. You can also select here how many hits will be listed per page. This is the set up panel for generating the HTML report that you can open in your browser during the search ‘run’, or after the agent is done. 3. Check your Network Options: Click on the –Sharp N- icon. This opens the Network Options control panel. You can leave them for now, if you started with demo2.XO as your starting point template for creating a new agent. 4. Check your Agent Configuration: Click on the –Magnifying glass- icon. This opens the agent module Configuration panel. In this panel, to start with, reduce the Title Offset number to zero (0). Reduce the number of JPEG images to 3 or 4. And you might want to reduce the GIF images capture to 3 or 4 as well. Always leave a number in these capture entry boxes, including zero (0). If the check boxes are unchecked it will gather image links only, up top the limit number you have specified in the Max# numeric entry boxes. Click Accept. To get brief descriptions of all the functions click the -?- icon in the top right corner of the panel and click on any radio button, checkbox or text line. 5. Save the agent module: By clicking on the –Floppy Disc- icon on the main graphic display toolbar (or use the pull down menu, select Agent submenu and select Save). 6. Run the Agent Module: Now try to run the agent by clicking on the -Right arrow- icon in the main toolbar. The top left corner pulsing light of the panel will turn from red to green. It will begin spidering down through all the pages of the web site. You can stop it at any time. You can stop the agent online by clicking on the toolbar –Box- icon. You can pause the agent online by clicking on the toolbar –Double Vertical Bar- icon You can continue the agent from where it was stopped by clicking on the toolbar –Curled arrow- icon. 7. Didn’t do anything? Troubleshooting: If the pulsing colored box in the top left corner of the main toolbar window immediately turns to red and the search doesn’t execute, you may need to change the Network Options settings. Click on the –N- icon to open the panel and click on the "Include Text Based URLs" to enable grabbing URLs that are embedded in any plain text document (.TXT). Also make sure the Maximum Subdirectory is set to All Subdirectories (no limit). Now click on Accept, and try running the agent module again by clicking the -Right arrow- icon. It should run. If it does not, then go back to the Network Options panel and click on the Force Origin Server Checkbox, and try running the agent module again. In a few cases, the web site may be served from another domain than the domain you started with in the Search window GET URL. In that case, open the Search panel (-X- icon on main toolbar) and un-check the "Stay in Domain" box, and try running the agent again. Make sure you have not checked the Nav checkbox or any other checkbox in the search set up control panel. If the agent module still fails to run, the web site may be all Java applet driven or complex Javascript, or a complex Flash site interface. If the site offers it, switch to non-Flash interface on your browser window and click the GET URL again. What are the different Network Options Operations settings, and what do they each mean, and when do I need to use them? Confine Search to Basic URL Names – there are several distinctions on URLs, and when this is checked, Surf3D only looks at simple addresses, such as .html, .asp and a couple other common URL suffixes. Anything at eBay is typically not a simple URL. Use Cache if the Network Fails – this checkbox will instruct the agent to use your browser cache if you are offline and the data exists in your cache from earlier manual surfing you have don with the browser, or earlier agent runs that have stored items in the browser cache. Force Origin Server - selecting this checkbox will cause any network web proxies to not be used, and instead get the page from the original source and not the network cache that is currently in use on the network. This can be important for retrieving timely information given network caches pages can be sometimes a little dated. Force Reload and Add to Cache – selecting this checkbox causes the agent module to not use previously existing data and files stored in your browser cache and instead only get the page from online. This is like the reload button on your browser. Disable Cookies – selecting this checkbox prevents any cookies from being deposited into your temporary internet files, which might be encountered during an agent search. Include Text Based URL’s – selecting this checkbox lets the agent module collect http URL links in Javascript text in many cases, but is designed for grabbing URL’s from text documents. For example this is must be checked if you have created a stock portfolio with URLs for Yahoo quotes for every stock, and stored the URLs in a list in the agent text doc file (accessed via clicking on the -?- icon on the agent module main toolbar (e.g. see: NSDQtop50Agent_1.xo). What is the Maximum Subdirectory limit mean in the Network Options panel, and when should I set it to other than "no limit"? This set of radio buttons controls the depth of search relative to a given web site domain. If set at Top Only – No Subdirectories, only the single page will be visited. If set at –1-, only one level down from the top directory will be visited. E.g. domainname.com/subdirectory If set at –2-, only 2 levels down from the top directory will be visited. E.g. domainname.com/subdirectory/subdirectory If set at –3-, only 3 levels down from the top directory will be visited. E.g. domainname.com/subdirectory/subdirectory/subdirectory If set at All Subdirectories (no limit) then Surf3D will not be limited. What is the Initial Referrer line in the Network Options panel? When you go to a web page, if you have been to another web page just before it, then the last web page you visited can be identified by the newly visited web page server. If you don’t mind this (as this is how browsers normally work anyway), leave the text NONE in the entry line. However, if you want to identify a particular referring web page to the web page or pages your Surf3D agent module visits, you can type in URL here. This effectively spoofs the referral info to the next server surf3D is visiting. We recommend however you leave this as NONE, unless you are concerned with maintaining extra privacy. Sometimes web pages will only load if the referring page is a particular one, and so this can be a convenient way to introduce the expected referring page address so you can have access to the page. What is the I.D. line mean in the Network Options panel? This identifies who you are to the servers that Surf3D is visiting. Surf3D looks to any server as if it is merely a browser, since the I.D. is Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 4.01; Windows 95). Of course you can type in your browser type if you want. What are Surf3D’s current limitations? The Beta Surf3D only parses HTML and occasionally some Javascript based web sites. Future versions are under development to parse Javascript and Java applet oriented web pages. Check the Surf3D.com website for announcements. How do I set up different agent Start conditions in the agent Configuration panel? The OPEN radio button opens the agent is a STOPPED state, and this preference is for icon or screensaver started agent modules. The NEW radio button opens the agent and then STARTS it, and this preference is for icon or screensaver started agent modules. The CONTINUE radio button opens the agent and the CONTINUEs it from it last point left off in the search. This preference is for icon or screensaver started agent modules. This is the selection that must be made if you want to run a screensaver agent online and autosave the 3D network that is collected. See: "Seeing saved web displays on the screensaver is nice, but how do I make it go online AS a screensaver?" The GET URL+NEW radio button opens the agent, gets a URL from the browser (Internet Explorer or Netscape), and then STARTS it. This preference is for icon or screensaver started agents. What are the different Early Finish settings in the agent Configuration panel? Every time an agent finishes testing a web page node, it can execute an "EARLY FINISH" test. There are different ways to cause an agent to finish ‘early’. You can limit the total number of pages it will surf by selecting a number for Page Limit that is lower than is available online to surf. Another method is to select the checkbox for Source ALL or TRUE in the Early Finish Test section. Selecting ALL instructs the agent to test all pages for an early finish. Selecting TRUE instructs the agents to test only the True pages for an early finish. The radio buttons A, B and C under "Metric" in the Early Finish Test section, when alternatively checked, specify: to use Metric A for Early Finish Test, or use Metric B for Early Finish Test, or use Metric C for Early Finish Test, or use Metric SUM for early finish test. The radio buttons or ">" or "<" under the title "Test" specify if the early Finish Test is Greater-Than dependent, or if the Early Finish Test is Less-Than dependent, and the text entry line is where the user specifies the numeric Value to be tested for Early Finish. In this manner, for example, if the numeric element on a HTML document tests the number '1000', and the ">" radio button is checked, if the agent obtains a number greater than the number '1000', the agent will execute an Early Finish. How do I set up different agent Finish conditions in the agent Configuration panel? When an agent finishes testing all web page nodes, it will execute a "FINISH" test. The Radio button titled ALL under the title Source, when checked, specifies to test All pages before finishing. The Radio button titled "True" under the title "Source", when checked, specifies to test only True pages for the Finish Test. The radio buttons A, B and C under the titled Metric in the Finish sub-window, when alternatively checked, specify to use Metric A for Finish Test, or use Metric B for Finish Test, or use Metric C for Finish Test, or to use Metric SUM for Finish Test. The radio buttons or ">" or "<" under the title Test specify if the Finish Test is Greater-Than dependent, or if the Finish Test is Less-Than dependent, and the text entry line is where the user specifies the numeric Value to be tested for Finishing. The check box titled Rate, when checked, tests for RATE OF CHANGE relative to the previous iterated successful TRUE Finish Test. How do I set up picture and/or file Capture and Acquire preferences in the agent Configuration panel? The ACQUIRE and CAPTURE section is where the user can specify what type and size file will be collected. The checkbox Include False Pages, when checked, captures files from FALSE pages in addition to pages that have tested TRUE in the Boolean search test. Check box Text, when checked, enables text capture from an examined HTML document page, and (usually) limits the capture to the normally visible text on an HTML document page, excluding source code text not normally visible. The capture of text can set to a given number of bytes per page, such as 1000 bytes for example. The check box for Capture JPEG Images, when checked, enables JPEG image capture. If it is not checked, only links will be gathered if within the byte size window titled Bytes per Item, AND collect links limited by the number in the Max# numeric entry box. Check box Capture GIF Images, enables GIF image capture and behaves the same as JPEG capture. JPEG capture collects file extensions of both .jpeg and .jpg. Check box Capture Custom, when checked, enables CUSTOM file capture. If it is enabled, only files will be gathered according to the maximum number of bytes specified in the Bytes per Item Maximum and Minimum numeric entry lines. The operation of the Minimum and Maximum size settings are such that before the server sends the image file to the agent, the server is queried to find out what the size of the file is. The size tests are done before the download begins allowing the download to be skipped if the size is out of bounds. This saves bandwidth by ignoring downloading undesired items. The text entry line next to Capture Custom is where the user specifies the particular type of file to capture, such as any custom file type desired, for example, entering "pdf" to capture pdf files, or entering "mp3" to capture mp3 audio files. Examples of different file types the system can be arbitrarily specified to capture, include but are not limited to the following file types as any arbitrary file type extension can be included. The abbreviation exts = file type extension. File type descriptions are included below for example, however, only the extension characters themselves, such as "cgi", for example are necessary to be entered into the Capture Custom text line. You do not need to place a dot before the extension name in the entry box. Multiple extensions in the custom box need to be separated by a single space between each of them. type=text/common gateway interface exts=cgi type=application/postscript exts=ai eps ps type=audio/x-aiff exts=aif aiff aifc type=audio/Sun audio exts=au type=text/active server page exts=asp type=msvideo/active streaming exts=asf type=Shockwave/Flash file exts=swf type=Shockwave/MP3 file exts=swa type=iexplorer/Chan. Def. format exts=cdf type=text/plain exts=asc txt type=video/x-msvideo exts=avi type=image/bmp exts=bmp type=application/x-director exts=dcr dir dxr type=application/msword exts=doc type=application/x-dvi exts=dvi type=application/Photoshop file exts=psd type=image/gif exts=gif type=text/html exts=html htm type=image/jpeg exts=jpeg jpg jpe type=application/x-javascript exts=js type=audio/midi exts=mid midi kar type=video/mpeg exts=mpeg mpg mpe type=audio/mpeg exts=mpga mp2 mp3 type=application/pdf exts=pdf type=application/vnd.ms-powerpoint exts=ppt type=video/quicktime exts=qt mov type=audio/x-realaudio exts=ra type=audio/x-pn-realaudio exts=ram rm rmm type=application/rtf exts=rtf type=text/richtext exts=rtx type=application/Mac archive exts=sea type=application/x-stuffit exts=sit type=application/compression exts=tar type=image/tiff exts=tiff tif type=audio/x-wav exts=wav type=spreadsheet/excel exts=xls type=text/ exts=xml type=application/zip exts=zip The text entry lines titled Max #, specify the maximum number of JPEG files to capture, GIF files to capture, or CUSTOM files to capture. More than one file type extension can be entered into the custom type text entry line to have an agent custom capture multiple types of files at once. The Bytes per Item numeric line entry titled "Maximum" and numeric entry line titled "Minimum", are where the user may specify the Minimum and Maximum size of individual files that will be captured. How do I limit the number of web page nodes to be searched in the agent Configuration panel? Set the number of pages in the Page Limit numeric entry box. How do I use the RETRY scheduling function in the agent Configuration panel? Agent modules can persistently scan and retrieve results, and then repeat the actions even if the results are True or False in the Boolean search test. This is useful in order to obtain continuously changing data from a given source, such as a stock price for example. The numeric entry line embedded into the first part of the sentence "If test is FALSE, wait ______ Minutes..." specifies that IF the Finish Test result is FALSE, wait this number of minutes before repeating running the agent module. This is effective for icon or screen saver started agents. The numeric entry embedded into the last part of the sentence "... Minutes and retry _____ times" specifies IF Finish Test result is FALSE and this value is non-zero, repeat the search ‘x’ number of times. This is effective for icon or screen saver started agents. How do I set up the agent Final Actions in the Configuration panel? The bottom section of the agent Configuration window is the FINAL ACTIONS. There are several check boxes here. Check box Bell, when checked, if the result of the Finish Test is TRUE, rings the bell. Check box Report, when checked, if the result of the Finish Test is TRUE, opens the HTML Report in your browser Check box Alarm, when checked, if the result of the Finish Test is TRUE, sounds the Alarm bell. How do I set up the agent Email alerts in the agent Configuration panel? Check box E-Mail Alert, when checked, if the result of the Finish Test is TRUE, will send an email to any destination. Clicks on the E-mail Msg button, which opens a notification message window, where you can write an E-mail, including entering address, and subject line, a short message. If you want to include all the plain text from the first page of the Report, check the Include Report box. Check box Close, when checked, closes the Agent on the final Finish, and is effective for icon or screen saver started agents. Check box Do Final Actions even if it is False, when checked, if Finish Test result is FALSE on the finish, the agent module will then execute the selected FINISH ACTIONS. How can I use the agent Chaining feature in the Configuration Panel? (advanced users only) The button titled Chain opens the Agent Chain and shell execution window. One valuable feature of the software is the ability to rapidly and automatically update shell application programs and change the priorities of subsequent agent module activity by chaining agents. This can act as a rapid update process using live search on the web to provide maximum recency of information to a shell environment applications. This effects better specificity, currency and relevance of information. The chaining and shell application execution permits an additional operational capability at the multi-agent scale. A collection of agents can be conditionally chained together with different conditional flow logic, in order to accomplish more complex tasks and collection operations than a single agent can provide. Such multi-agents and agents chains comprise a propositional system. Agents may be chained to and embedded into conventional rule and or framed based inference systems. Am agent can comprise the execution of business rules that represent key application logic such as rules about conditions associated with the diagnosis and corrective maintenance of a product, or rules associated with an transactional exchange system relating to price, quantity and delivery. Such rule based systems already common within industry describe and facilitate specification of rules and rule sets to be applied to support decision making and management of information. Using the chaining function, agents can be subordinated to other agents, and clusters of agents can operate in a compound manner to derive complex activities. Agents are defined as active objects within an environment. Agents, as active objects, are classed within as different types of agents. Each agent type has associated individual attributes and capabilities. Agents also have starting and finishing states and variables. Agents undergo transitions from one state to another state depending on their interaction with the environment and the behavior engaged. Agents can operate as an aggregate collection. Agents can be sequenced and associated according to inter-agent rules of interaction and discovered information due to search activity on a network. An individual agent, when launched, engages in an activity without the aid of other agents. An individual agent, upon completion of it's run-time task, can then trigger other agents through chaining. Multiple agents can be triggered from a single agent. Agent outcome states are preconditions to the initiation of other agents based on the Boolean state of the first Agent results. Agent causing other agents to activate is a form of "forward chaining" propagation. The forward chaining is data driven from the data set discovered by an agent during search or retrieval task execution on web or network. The Chain Execute window provides a means to conditionally chain agents to one another based on the outcome of their search and retrieval activity returning a TRUE or FALSE result. The On TRUE text entry line is where the user can specify another agent to commence activity if the results of the prior agent returned a TRUE result. The On FALSE text entry line is where the user can specify another agent to commence activity if the results of the prior agent returned a FALSE result. Both the On TRUE and On FALSE text entry lines can individually specify more than one agent to start, or can specify the computer to launch any application program, or combination thereof of agents, application programs, using a batch file. The Browse buttons associated with each On TRUE and On FALSE sections can be used to capture a file name and path on the users computer that are to be executed. The full file path must be present, not just the name of the agent to be triggered. When an Agent chains to another agent, it can pass a URL to it. The URL that is passed to it is used as the Starting URL for the new Agent. This is similar to the GET URL command button on the Search set up window (-X- icon on main toolbar), except it gets it from the preceding Agent instead of the Browser. There are entry lines for adding the URL to the Agent that is being chained. The URL which is passed to the next Agent in the chain can be either a web address or an HTML document located on the local hard disk or in local device memory. By setting the URL to point at the HTML report for the Agent project that is on the hard disk, a group of URLs that are discovered on the network by one Agent can be passed to another Agent by looking at the Report. To use this feature you must click on Report in the Final Actions section of the Configuration window. By limiting the size of the Report in terms of items per page and number of pages, a limited number of URLs can be passed between agents. By using the metric sorting, a limited set of URLs with high-ranking value for successive agent chaining can be passed. If the Chain feature is being used to launch an application instead of an Surf3D agent, the text which holds the URL data for an Surf3D agent is used as the standard command line argument for the application. When an Agent is launched and there is a URL being passed to it, (which will only happen when an Agent is launched via the Chain feature), it forces the AGENT START action to be set to run (use NEW Agent Start checkbox). This insures that it will execute a NEW search while preventing the Open, Continue, and Get URL+New actions. These other Agent Starts are usually inappropriate for a 'chained' agent. Do chained agents preserve Password protection? The agent chaining setup accommodates the password protected mode of an Agent being used as a screen saver module. It is configured so that any agent that is chained by another Agent that is password protected will inherit the password and the full screen mode. In other words, if the first Agent in the chain is launched as a screen saver module, all subsequent Agents that may be chained to it will also act as screen saver modules. What are the Cull Nodes controls, and how do I use them? Open the Display control panel by clicking on the –three dot- icon on the main toolbar. Two control panel windows will open, one for general display control and another behind it for Cursor controls. On the right side of the Cursor control panel, is a section called Cull Nodes. Nodes can be removed from the graphic display using various radio button selections in this control in conjunction with the node culling slider on the bottom right of this window. Nodes to be ignored can be grayed-out by clicking on the Grey checkbox. There are 11 radio button selections, each effect a different culling function. Each of which is scaled by the use of the global use Min-Max slider control directly below the radio buttons. These radio buttons each show nodes relative to a single highlighted node. (You can highlight nodes using the Cursor Position slider on the left side of the panel). ALL: leaves all page nodes visible (default) COMMON SOURCE: shows other sibling nodes linked to the same source parent node DESCEND: shows first generation children nodes linked to the selected (parent) node SUBSEQUENT: shows nodes visited by the agent subsequent to the selected node PREVIOUS: shows nodes visited by the agent prior to the selected node DESCENDENTS: shows all descendent progeny (or children nodes) of the selected node DISTANCE: shows nodes included within a 3D cubic spatial vector distance from the selected node (comparing X, Y and Z to the node) SIMILAR METRIC A: shows nodes with numerically near Metric A counts to the selected node’s Metric A value. The slider scales from 1 to 10 count nearness. SIMILAR METRIC B: shows nodes with numerically near Metric B counts to the selected node’s Metric B value. The slider scales from 1 to 10 count nearness. SIMILAR METRIC C: shows nodes with numerically near Metric C counts to the selected node’s Metric C value. The slider scales from 1 to 10 count nearness. SIMILAR METRIC SUM: shows nodes with numerically near Metric Sum counts to the selected node’s Metric Sum value. The slider scales from 1 to 10 count nearness. How do I Cull the Number of Titles to be displayed on the Cursor panel? Open the Display control panel by clicking on the –three dot- icon on the main toolbar. Two control panel windows will open, one for general display control and another behind it for Cursor controls. In the middle vertical section of the Cursor panel is a vertical slider titled Cull Titles. When the slider is all the way to the bottom, all titles for all nodes will appear. As you move the slider upwards, titles with lowest number metric counts are excluded from appearance, and higher slider positions cull out higher and higher number metric count node titles. This is useful to cull out text flag titles for many nodes with lower metric counts and only emphasize text flag titles with higher metric counts. For example, while culling titles in Bar Graph mode, as you move the slider upwards, the titles on the lower bars begin to disappear from the bottom up. When using the Cursor Position slider, how can I more easily open the browser to the highlighted web page node online (without using the keyboard)? On the Cursor panel bottom left there is a button title ONLINE. Clicking this will open the browser to the web page that has been highlighted using the Cursor Position sliders. How exactly does Surf3D execute its Online Search? (advanced users only) This covers the details of the Patent Pending Surf3D link capture rules, order of evaluation, and nav operations. Operations #1 All links on the target web page are captured into a holding buffer. As they are being 'captured', the Link Text test is performed on each link separately. If the Link Text is not enabled (check box is not checked), no test is performed and all links entered into the buffer. In Link Text Test, each text term is evaluated in turn (left to right) to discover if there is a match within both the URL text itself AND the display text that is associated with the URL. Each term that is entered may optionally be preceded with the ! character (a symbol for exclusion). If a term has spaces embedded in it, it must be surrounded by enclosing quote marks (like "find me" ). Case sensitivity is determined by the check box "Case Sensitive" Depending on the presence of the exclusion character ! If not present --> any match of the term will end the test with success ( i.e. the link is saved, as opposed to thrown out). If the ! is present --> any match of the term will end the test with failure ( i.e. the link is thrown out). In both cases, if a result is not found (success and failure respectively), the test moves on to the next term going left to right. If all terms have been tested without result, it is considered a failure and link is thrown out. Link Text Test NOTE: If the Link Text check box is checked, ONLY links that pass this test will survive! Operations #2 The entire web page is then tested for a BOOLEAN True or False depending on the AND OR terms and the NAV settings. ONLY if the NAV check box is enabled AND the result is False, then ALL of the links in the holding buffer are thrown out... ending the process for this particular web page. Conversely, if NAV is checked and the Boolean result if True, they are all saved. NAV has several modes which affect the result. Various combinations of AND OR, metric values, and a user input X are available for selection. If NAV is not checked, all links in holding buffer are retained. Boolean Test: Terms for both AND and OR may be: Preceded with a ! to signify NOT. Preceded with a @ to signify "skip tag contents" (see below). If a term has spaces embedded in it, it must be surrounded by enclosing quote marks (like "find me" ). If the AND term line is empty (blank), only the OR terms are considered. If the OR term line is empty (blank), it is ignored and only AND terms are considered. If both AND and OR terms are empty, the result is always True. Case sensitivity is set by the check box "Case Sensitive". Both AND and OR are logically OR’d to produce a result. AND must have at least 2 terms, or be empty. Example: AND = one two three, OR = four five. Page has "three", "two", and "one" on it, is TRUE. Page has "four" on it, is TRUE. Page has "five" on it, is TRUE. Use of the ! (NOT) will reverse the logic when it is evaluated. Example: AND = one !two three OR = !five. Page has "three" and "one" and does not contain "two" is TRUE Page does not contain "five" is TRUE. Page has "three", "one", and "five" and does not contain "two" is TRUE. Normally when text matching within the web page is performed, only the 'text' portion of the web page is examined for matches. Elements contained inside of HTML tags are excluded from testing. If the term is preceded with a @ character, then the entire page (tags and all) is searched for matches. Operations #3 Exclusion Test Any links remaining in the buffer are then tested for "Exclusion" ONLY if the check box is checked. If it isn't checked, this test is skipped. Each term is evaluated to see if a match exists within the text of the URL itself. If any match is found, the link is thrown out. If no match is found, the link is saved. The test is case sensitive. Operations #4 Inclusion Test All of the links remaining in the holding buffer are then tested for "Inclusion" ONLY if the check box is checked. If it isn't checked, this test is skipped. Inclusion Test: Each term is evaluated to see if a match exists within the text of the URL itself. If a match is found, the link is saved. If no match is found, the link is thrown out. The test is case sensitive. Inclusion Test NOTE: If the Inclusion check box is checked, ONLY links that pass this test will survive! Operations #5 Any links remaining in the buffer are then scrutinized for various other things like duplication, invalid types, etc.. The media file links are then separated out into their own holding buffer. Surviving links are then pronounced 'good' and they are saved in the internal database. The indicator for TOTAL is adjusted accordingly. This represents the end of the 'link' processing cycle for any given web page (unless it ended early in step #2). Is there any Spyware in Surf3D? There is no spyware in Surf3D. Only a ping is sent to Navagent server when the user first opens the application. In addition, Navagent servers route agent alerts email, however no server logs are retained and your email messages are guaranteed to be not read by any person except the person to whom you have emailed an agent alert. For more information, please see Navagent’s Privacy Policy at: http://www.navagent.com/privacy/ When will version Surf3D 1.0 be released? Please check the website for announcements. Where can I see a concise list of all of Surf3D’s features? See: http://surf3D.com/support/surf3D/features/explanation Or for a complete overview directory, see: http://surf3D.com/overview/ What additional features will Surf3D 1.0 contain? Please check the surf3D.com website for announcements. Surf3D 1.0 will contain a host of additional convenience features (such as installing itself into the Start directory and placing shortcuts on the desktop if you desire), and a few valuable new main features. Will Surf3D 1.0 provide an API (Applications Programmer Interface) to customize new display types? For now, please request display types you would like to see and we will carefully consider implementing them for the 1.0 release. Is there a professional version of Surf3D for Intranets and enterprise use? Yes, please email Navagent: info@navagent.com to inquire about our business services, and check the website information on this by going to: My question hasn’t been answered here in this F.A.Q. How do I contact you to ask it? Please email us at support@navagent.com I have found a bug in the software! Who do I report it to? Please email us a bug report at s3dbetabug@navagent.com I would like to offer some suggestions. Who do I email? Please email us with improvement suggestions at suggest@navagent.com |
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