Legacy Applications

Some of Synoptic Text’s legacy applications are:

  • PostSearch™
  • PatentWatcher™
  • PatentsWeb™
  • nCodian Flatfile™
  • nCodian FreeText™
  • nCodian Documenter Lite™
  • Synoptic Text Registration™
  • SICbase™
  • SetOps Library

PostSearch™ was designed to reduce the time and tedium of cleaning up and sifting through log files of online database searches of pre-web database systems. Searchers estimated the ratio of post-processing time in word processors to online searching time anywhere from 2-to-1 up to 5-to-1. In other words, it could take more than two hours to clean up a 30-minute search session. That is a colossal waste of skilled professional time.

PostSearch™ could accomplish the basis filtering in seconds, and then provide a collection of tools that kept the searcher’s head in the content of the data with little attention being distracted by the mechanics of sifting and editing. For example, the software knew where the beginning and end of a free text record were and could act on that block of text at once to save it to “keep” file. Once the output “keep” file name was established with an initial Keep command, a single key stroke of the K/k key would execute the Keep Express command on the currently displayed record.

Following is how the software was described.

PostSearch™ for Windows is a database search post-processor for:

  • BRS
  • Data-Star,
  • DataTimes
  • DIALOG
  • DJN/R //TEXT
  • NewsNet
  • NLM
  • Orbit
  • Ovid
  • STN

whose functions can be divided roughly into three main groups:

  1. filtering
  2. after filtering
  3. utilities

Filtering

Filtering is the root of post-processing in PostSearch™. Most other functions are performed on filtered record files.

Filtering means to clean up a database search. The contents of a captured search file are passed through a filter to screen out everything but the records. Logon sequences, menus, prompts, help screens, expanded terms, etc. are filtered out. The filters label and number the records in the form Record – 1, Record – 2, etc.

After Filtering

After filtering a database search, you might:

  • sift
  • query by form
  • rank
  • sort
  • port DIALOG TAGed records to Microsoft Access
  • divide records individually into separate files
  • renumber record labels
  • delete record labels
  • replace record labels
  • insert page breaks
  • remove hard carriage returns (in DIALOG TAGed records)
  • undelimit DIALOG TAGed records
  • create a diction list
  • create a file header or cover page

Sifting

Sifting means to edit a filtered search on a record-centered basis. Though a filtered record file is sheer text, not a database, and though the records are of variable length, the sifter commands can act at once on a whole record as a discrete unit. You can:

  • view records, navigating through them record-by-record (rather than line-by-line or page-by-page as in a word processor) with the commands Next, Previous, First, Last and Jump (directly to a record by number)
  • write chosen records to one or many new files with the commands Keep, Keep Express, and Write Kept with no need to highlight, cut-and-paste, perform block operations or otherwise manipulate the text constituting a record
  • reorder records with the commands Order and Write Order, specifying the currently displayed record’s new order by simply typing a number.

Query by Form

The Query command applies query-by-form (QBF) to a filtered record file. Records selected by the query are written to a new file. The query form implements Boolean operators, nesting and truncation.

Rank

Ranking reorders records by weighted frequency of terms. You can specify up to six terms with or without right truncation assigning each a weight from 1 to 9.

Sort

Sorting alphabetizes records on a field. For example, you can alphabetize records by author by specifying the AU- field. Sorting requires field tags at the left.

Port

The Port command automates portage of DIALOG TAGed records into Microsoft Access .MDB database format. This allows you to exercise Access’s considerable powers of the data, such as reordering fields, deleting fields, deduping, sorting, searching and generating reports.

Insert Page Breaks

In preparation for printing, you might need to go through a file and insert page breaks. For example, two abstracts might fit on each page, and you might not want an abstract split from page to page. Or you might not want full text records to begin in the middle of a page, preferring that each one begin on a new page. PostSearch™ allows page breaks to be inserted automatically every N records automatically.

Remove Hard Carriage Returns

In preparation for printing, you might want to remove hard carriage returns so that your word processor can have control of the margins, fonts, etc. PostSearch™ can reformat DIALOG TAGed records to remove hard carriage returns within fields. See Susan N. Bjorner, “Of Wits and Magic and Micro Worlds: Removing Unwanted Carriage Returns from Search Output,” Online, p. 85 (January 1992).

Header/Cover Page

The Header/Cover Page command lets you create a stylized memo documenting the search, and either attach it to the data file as a Header or as a separate cover page or save the memo as a separate file.