I am using RW7 and want to build a site containing 1000+ files which may be pdfs, docs, or jpgs.
I need to incorporate a search facility which will identify a specific word or group of words within the text as well as in the file names.
The site will be published as a sub domain of an existing site and will have password protected access.
Which stack/plugin/etc would you recommend for the search facility
You may also want to consider Live Search stack at 1LD:
http://onelittledesigner.com/rapidweaver-stack/live-search/
I could be wrong but I don’t think either of those will search the contents of a PDF or .DOC stored on the site. I think they both search through text that exists on the page rather than in a file.
@robbeattie: You are correct. I’m not sure there’s anything “easy” that will do that. But if the original poster includes a good descriptive name for each PDF/DOC in the web text then he should be okay.
Mathew, thanks for your suggestion, but as the documents are of a technical nature and contain references to part numbers and descriptions (which should be searchable) it is impossible to put a full description in the file name
Well there must be a solution for you but it may be tricky or expensive, or both. 
There may be some great PHP code out there (e.g. PHP Jabbers). Yesterday, on another thread, someone highly recommended Zoom Search product ($99). Another possible (I think) is DevonThink Office whereby you can create a web searchable version of all your stored documents. It means, of course, getting DevonThink Office (a great product). They have a forum also, so you may want to ask over there about more details.
Thanks Mathew, I have used zoom search before when i created an intranet for my employer before I retired and it certainly does what I need, but that was on the dark side before I moved over to using a MAC. However I see they now do a MAC version and it would be my search engine of choice. However I have no idea how to incorporate it into RapidWeaver even if it will and I am not a coder.
I will contact Wrensoft and see what they say.
Thanks for the suggestion
I use RapidSearch from NimbleHost to search on my site
it searches content of PDFs
Not as elegant as others, but has the functionality I require. I tried Live Search (1LD), but it only searched files that were part of my menu structure, and i have hundreds of pages that are not in the menu.
Terry Vosbein
Thanks Terry, I have had a quick look at the link to your site but cant find the search button, am I going blind?
Will RapidSearch also search the content of doc files
Les
Only your eye doctor can answer the question you asked 
But if you scroll down to the bottom of the page you’ll see the search bar.
As far as what it searches, if it views PDFs, then i imagine it would also search doc files. It uses Google for the search engine.
Terry Vosbein
Thanks Terry, it was a lack of brain cells, I didn’t think of scrolling down 
@TVosbein: RapidSearch is a great product from a first-rate developer. It may be the best choice in this case. … but Live Search will definitely search files outside the menu structure. You need to manually tell it to do so, but it works simply and effectively.
Granted for 100s of files it may not be the most efficient way to do things, but I have 10s of pages (about 40 are hidden from menu structure) and it takes less than 30 minutes to manually add all of them.
Unfortunately, according to Wrensoft, Zoom search doesnt work with RW - so back to square 1.
Rapid Search is a possibility but as it relies on Google indexing the files before it works it will be difficult to test as the site structure will be either complex, or the contents of each page large, I would like to be able to test as I go along rather than wait until the site is ready and published only to find there is a problem.
Is there any stack that allows you to do this http://www.dancingastronaut.com just start typing on the page and it searches the website. You don’t even have to click on the search.
Strange though that there is no X for the mouse happy people to get you out of it but escape works just fine.
Zoom is apart from Rapidweaver. It runs locally on your Mac under OX and it creates flat files which you upload to your site. You then put their search box code (form) on you site anywhere you can put code. I use Zoom on my 1700 page site. I love it.
The search returns come from a “snippet” you place on a page. Thus, it integrates perfectly into your pages.
If you want more info let me know. Oh, you can even have categories. I have mine setup so you can get search returns from “Store,” “Reports,” “Site,” etc…
If you want to see Zoom in action see site below…
(op has seen… url removed)
Greg
Thank you for this information which is very helpful, when I spoke to Wrensoft they said that Zoom couldn’t be used on a Mac under OX, so if you have found a way of doing this I am very interested.
I must say that I am not a coder and would need considerable help, but if you are willing to help me I would be very grateful as I have used zoom before and really like it
They MUST have mis-understood you… thinking you wanted to index files on OSX. The app is an OSX app, built for OSX. Someone at WrenSoft (Zoom) gave you bad information. I can send you screen shots of the setup options if you wish. It is very powerful.
Again, you run Zoom and upload the files it creates. You place a snippet of code where you want your returns. You can very easily modify how you want the search results to show also.
Zoom also has the ability to index pdf and other files on your site. That requires add ons.
Zoom also creates a sitemap file.
You said you used Zoom previously… was that on Windows? Was it “Zoom Search Engine” ?
https://www.wrensoft.com/zoom/
If you used Zoom before I’m a little confused…
Yes I used Zoom about 10 years ago when I built an intranet for the company I was working for before I retired. Yes this was windows based (XP pro). I presume it was the Zoom search engine, I bought it from Wrensoft and of course as I was building an internal intranet which was based around MS Frontpage it was very easy to index all the files.
I assume that the app for Mac works in the same way, but the difference this time for me will be that as I will be publishing the files to an external website, so I assume that I will need to reindex every time I make any changes.