Eric:

I'm less familiar with java, but if you're not tied to the architecture
there may be a few other options;
The last release of Greenstone software could run a repository from a
CD. Searching included.
I've seem code examples of a portable, run on CD, web platform that runs
on the .NET platform. It's been awhile and I can't remember specifics.
I once wrote a C# application that hosted the IE browser within a
windows form. This got me past any sandbox issues and I served up html
via xml/xsl. It had full-text searching. Perhaps something similar can
be done in Java. You can (also) create .htc files for IE that presume a
trusted environment so you are not limited by the usual security
constraints. Then you could use javascript for linking rather than form
submissions.
I suppose I'm talking around your specific requirements but maybe
there's an approach in here to consider. It's been awhile since I
thought about this kind of thing; an interesting challenge.

Eric Muzzy
American Museum of Natural History



Eric Lease Morgan wrote:
> Can someone here tell me about the feasibility of implementing a
> particular Java application on a CD, described below.
>
> For a good time I would like to distribute my Alex Catalogue of
> Electronic Texts on an operating system independent CD. Here is how I
> see it being implemented:
>
>   1. Collect electronic texts
>   2. Mark them up in TEI
>   3. Transform them into HTML and/or PDF
>   4. Create an author index in HTML
>   5. Create a title index in HTML
>   6. Use Lucene to index the texts
>   7. Write a Java program to search
>      the index and return hyperlinks
>      to the texts
>   8. Put the whole lot on a CD
>   9. Give it away
>
> With the exception of Step #7, I know the plan is implementable, but
> how can I do Step #7?
>
> This is what I want to do with Step #7. First I create an HTML form
> looking something like this:
>
>   <form action='search.java' method='get'>
>     <input type='text' name='query' />
>     <input type='submit' />
>   </form>
>
> When people click the submit button the contents of query get passed
> to search.java and executed. The search results are formatted into
> HTML and returned to the browser for display.
>
> Is such a program implementable? Can a program like search.java get
> input from a form like this without the need of an intermediate HTTP
> server? Apparently Java applet technology will not work in this
> environment because applets are not allowed to read from the local
> file system.
>
> --
> Eric "Wishing I Was @ Access2006" Morgan
> University Libraries of Notre Dame