Table of Contents

---

Search workspace

In the search workspace, users can specify a single query that searches across multiple data sources. Searches can be by keyword or by query terms. The following diagram shows the keyword search subworkspace:

Introduction

Switching search types

To switch search types, use the Search menu in the main application menu bar. It contains two menu items:

1. By keyword
2. By query terms

Data and Literature Sources

For the keyword and query term search types, you must specify the source to query. These sources are categorized into two groups:

• Data sources: databases that contain annotated biological data. These data sources can be private or public. Private data sources are identified with a Lock icon next to the data source name.
• Literature sources: databases that contain publication data. Since the literature sources typically have feature rich web page interfaces, our application launches the search using the user's default web browser.

User Credentials

When accessing private data sources, the system displays a popup box requesting the user to provide the credentials information to log into the data source. Following diagram displays the popup window that is shown to the user.

• Once the user enters credentials, the system caches this information, and for all subsequent queries to this data source, the cached credentials are used.

Search subworkspaces

The general search workflow is as follows:

1. Select the Data and Literature Sources to query
2. Specify the search criteria.
3. Click the Search button. This will load the Search Results panel, which allows the user to browse the result records.
4. To perforn a new search, click on the New Search button in the results panel.

More specific instructions for each search subworkspace are given below.

Keyword Search

To search data and literature sources by keywords:

1. Switch to the Search workspace
2. Switch to the Keyword subworkspace (Search > By Keyword)
3. Select the sources to query
   • Data sources
   • Literature sources
4. Enter the keywords in the textfield
5. Hit Enter or click the Search button. If successful, the Search Results panel will be displayed.

Error checks performed on clicking "Search":

• If keyword is not entered, system shows following error message in a popup box: "Please enter keywords"
• If no data source is selected, system shows following error message in a popup box: "No data sources selected"

Query Term Search

To search data and literature sources by query terms:

1. Switch to the Search workspace
2. Switch to the Query Term subworkspace (Search > By Query Terms)
3. Select the query term parameters
   1. Enable a Search Group by clicking the appropriate checkbox.
   2. Select the appropriate query parameters for each enabled search group
4. Select the sources to query
   • Data sources
   • Literature sources
5. Click on the Search button. If successful, the Search Results panel will be displayed.

Error checks performed on clicking "Search":

• If no data source is selected, system shows following error message in a popup box: "No data sources selected"
• If no query term is selected, system shows following error message in a popup box: "No query terms selected"

Search Results

The Search Results panel provides an interface that allows the user to browse and preview the search result records returned by data sources (results for literature searches are shown in the default web browser). The search results panel has several components:

• Search summary: This component summarizes the search criteria specified by the user.
• Database progress: This component describes the current state of query processing on each of the data sources that were selected for this search.
  • Displays a progress icon when the query is being processed
  • Displays a tick icon when the query is processed successfully
  • Displays an error icon if the query failed for a particular data source.
• Results: This component displays the results returned by the search query.
  • The results are organized and grouped together by data source. Each data source is displayed in a single panel and they are collapsed by default. These panels are expanded by clicking on the Expand/Collapse arrow button located at top left of each of the panels. On expanding the panel, the system displays results from the corresponding data source.
  • If there was an error while querying this data source, the system will show the error message under the corresponding data source's panel.
  • User can remove a particular data source panel by clicking on the Close button located on right top of each panel.
• Viewing results from a specific data source:
  • Users can view the results from a particular data source by expanding its panel. System displays the results in a tabular format.
  • The results from an individual data source are grouped together by datatype.
  • Hovering the mouse over the Name property will display a thumbnail preview of the data, if it exists.
  • Columns in the table can be sorted in ascending or descending order by Left mouse-clicking the column header.
  • Right-mouse-clicking on a column header displays a list of column names available for this specific data source. The columns that are already selected are marked. Users can modify this list to see different columns in the table.
  • Selecting the Add checkbox for a particular row adds the result record into the cart. The cart is a mechanism in the system to move items within different workspaces (see Cart Manager). For example, one can open a search query result by adding it to the cart, switching to the Viewer workspace, and opening the saved object from the cart to display in the Viewer.

---