| SearchBlog's profileLive SearchPhotosBlogLists |  Tools  Help |
|
October 18 Cornell University joins Live Book SearchWe are excited to announce that Cornell University has joined our Book Search initiative. Like all of our library scanning partnerships, the Cornell project will focus on scanning books in the public domain. Cornell and Microsoft will be teaming with Kirtas Technologies in Victor, NY to digitize the books. Kirtas uses non-destructive scanning—an obvious must for library collections!
Cornell has an impressive collection that will be of interest to researchers around the world...you can read more in the press release here.
---Cliff Guren, Director of Publisher Evangelism October 16 Search Macros: LinkfromDomainNow that Zach’s given you the user-friendly introduction to how macros work, let me take you on a tour of the gears and inner workings that we expose in our advanced syntax. These operators allow you to do some really interesting things with macros. A New OperatorWe have one new, very exciting operator: LinkFromDomain. Using LinkFromDomain in your search includes all sites that are linked from a given domain. This complements LinkDomain (which includes all sites that link to a given domain) that was introduced back in June, 05. The visual below depicts “YourSite.com” and a set of related sites. The Blue nodes represent sites with reciprocal links, while the yellow nodes are sites you link to, and the green nodes sites that link to you. Here’s how you would capture these domains with advanced syntax:
For more insights into the use of linkFromDomain, check out the form-based demo over at my MSDN blog. This syntax can be mixed freely with our wide range of other advanced search operators. Crafting Macros with Advanced SyntaxMacros allow you to bundle up syntax into easy to reference keywords. Using the advanced path in the macro creation wizard, you can experiment with different syntaxs and preview the results versus the normal live search results. Compare the results for the query RAM on Live Search and on Live Search with my Windows Vista macro. The gallery page for this macro shows it’s definition. I use a key set of trusted sites to define a network of great sources for Vista information. Another fun tweak for any macro is the feed: operator which returns RSS feeds. Try the feed: operator with the Windows Vista macro for a great set of blogs to watch as Vista rolls out. This is an example of chaining together macros. Say you want to find podcasts in the gadget commnunity about dvrs. This query combines the livesearch podcast macro and my gadget macro. In case you missed it the first time around, the contains: operator allows you to find pages that have a particular file type, like a music file or Office document. Learn and Play at the GalleryWhile we’ve got some plans to get macros in the hands of every user, in the meantime, you can try out, see how macros work, and share your own macros at Gallery.Live.com. In addition to lots of user crafted macros, the search team has seeded the gallery categories celebrities, sports, and cities in culture. I’ve been experimenting with capturing communities on the web with the link domain operators. Perhaps you’re interested in:
Other folks are experimenting with different types of macros. Try:
As excited as I am about our improvements in empowering users to use the link structure of the web, there are great possibilities in all of our advanced syntax, from inanchor: to feed:. Speaking of which, if you want to track macros in your news aggregator, try subscribing to some of the feeds in this search “feed: macro:andyed.windowslive search macros”. --Andy Edmonds, Program Management/Relevance Geek October 12 Create your own search engine (an update to Live Search Macros)We recently released a big update to Search Macros. Thank you to everyone who has sent in feedback since the first release in March. We were able to incorporate a lot of it into this new version, including great new features like macro homepages and a side-by-side test page! Search Macros are personalized search engines for any topic area of interest. You can create them, use them, share them with friends or discover macros created by the community on Windows Live Gallery. I’d like to use this post to give you a basic overview of using and creating macros. We’ll use future posts to dive into more of the nitty gritty on specific macros features. Finding and using macros Users of the first Macros release told us that using a macro was difficult and not very user friendly. In this release, every macro now has its own homepage and human readable URL. This makes them much easier to use, bookmark, and send to friends over email or IM. For example, check out the homepage for the Reference Sites Search Engine macro (at http://search.live.com/macros/livesearch/reference): Enter a search term on this page and press Enter. You’ll be taken to the main Live Search page to see your results. On the results page you'll see that the macro’s name appears in the search bar at the top of the screen. This enables you to switch back and forth between Web, Images, Local, QnA and your favorite macros.
Here are some macros to try:
You can also find many more in the Windows Live Gallery! Creating and sharing macros In addition to using macros created by others, you can make your own using the creation wizard. Anyone can create and test a macro without registering or signing in. However, saving and sharing one requires a Windows Live ID. You can get started by clicking Edit macros in the More menu on the search results page, or you can navigate directly to http://search.live.com/macros. Many users asked for direct links to create and manage their macros, and we’re very happy to have enabled them in this version. Step 1 – Choose mode After clicking Get started you must choose a macro creation mode. Based on user feedback, we’ve added a new Basic mode to make creation faster and easier. Advanced mode—which enables use of the entire Live Search advanced syntax—is still available.
For this example, select Basic and then click Next. Step 2 – Define and test Type a list of sites you want to search into the big text box. Each one should be entered on a new line. You can enter anything you want here: including a list of your favorite sites, or maybe your own site or blog. To create and test a macro that searches some Microsoft sites:
A test search page appears in a new window. A number of users told us it was too difficult to see the results of a macro as you were creating it. In response, we’ve release the new side-by-side test page. Macro creators can use it to compare macro results to those of a standard Live Search as they create and refine their macro. You can see that the top result for this macro is Bill Gates’ Web Site. Now compare this to a belts, hoses and hydraulics site on the right. This is a simple example that shows the power of macros: in a matter of minutes we’ve customized Live Search to return results for the specific topic area of Microsoft!
Step 3 – Save your macro Click Save macro when you are finished defining it. If this is your first macro you will be required to reserve a creator ID. A creator ID is a unique name that will be associated with all of your macros. Think of it as your macro creating nickname.
The last step is to name your macro. For this example I’ll call use the name testmicrosoft.
At this point you have an option to customize your macro’s homepage, which will be created at http://search.live.com/macros/<your creator ID>/<your macro name>. A number of options appear when you click the Customize this page radio button:
The picture below shows where these options will appear on the homepage. Click Finish when you’re done customizing. You will be taken to your macro’s homepage where you can start searching, email the page to a friend, or share it on the Windows Live Gallery!
Feel free to explore the other features (editing macros, advanced creation mode, creating macros for News results) of Macros yourself. Once you have created a macro, visit http://search.live.com/macros, sign in and you’ll see an interface to make changes to your new creations.
Our team would love to hear what you think: create a macro of your own or try macros created by others. Use the comments section of this post or click Feedback at the bottom of any Search Macros page to share your thoughts.
On behalf of the Macros team, enjoy!
Zachary Gutt, Program Manager Live Search Macros |
|
|
