Flash Relevance Meters
OK, I had to put a post in here somewhere since I am sure that someone will ask. Since I just made a last minute adjustment to our flash relevance meters, it's on my mind.
On our new site (which your are looking at right now) we have created a quick search feature for articles. You can enter a keyword or phrase into the box and it will search all of our articles for matches. So all of this is done in SQL, and one neat little feature (which I had to take advantage of) is that the database will automatically determine relevance rankings for the results. Of course, it's screwy how it does it and isn't the best relevance engine, but it works.
I've noticed that it tends to look at the occurences of the searched word or phrase against the length of the record entry, in case that helps anyone. In the end, it kicks out a number that shows relevance. Those of you using SQL know that there are some nuances, but it's fun.
Back on topic, to explain the relevance meters. I made a simple flash file that moves a "loader" bar to mark the relevance. The actionscript looks will widen the bar until it reaches a variable (a percentage which is linked to the X scale). That percentage is passed into each flash file via the PHP script powering the page. By writing in the variable value into the embed and object tags required to place a flash file, I was able to have an animation graphically display the relevance of each result.
OK, I know. It's kind of stupid, and could be considered "flashturbation". But I like it, and it's kind of fun to play with. Just be warned, don't put too much stock into what the "pretty little blue bar" is telling you.
