Work is proceeding with Sphider 1.6!
What will be new in 1.6?
- The ability to truncate selected tables from the database tab
- The ability to clear all site data without deleting the site
- The ability to crawl a site using a sitemap.xml, provided one exists
- The option to preview pages from the results listing
- An issue with resuming suspended indexing has finally been resolved
- Support for an optional Sphider Image Indexer
At this point, the changes have been made in both the vanilla and PDO versions of 1.6 and testing is ongoing.
And what? An optional Sphider Image Indexer? This is an add-on that will work with Sphider 1.6. You will be able to build a catalog of images from sites where you have previously indexed the pages. Currently, the indexer itself is being tested, with excellent results. Work has begun on an image search function, but that is still in the VERY early stages and nowhere near being a viable tool. While the indexer required some modification of the core Sphider, the search function will not.
What this means is that once testing of the vanilla and PDO versions of 1.6 are complete, it can be released. The Image Indexer add-on still has to have the search function completed, then both the indexer and search function ported to PDO, and finally fully tested. At that time it will be released as version 0.99.
Since the search function of the add-on is in the very early stages of development, input as to how you would like to see it operate would be considered.