I want to make the list archives searchable in the true sense (like Google, like Yahoo, like MSN, ...not like Yahoo Groups).
Have you tried adding terms "site:groups.yahoo.com inurl:flexcoders" to any web search? These arguments work in both Google and Yahoo, and variants are available in other engines too.
NB: From what I've seen, neither Google nor Yahoo appears to archive all messages, but this is a spidering/coverage problem rather than a problem of capability on our part. Automating a separate archive still seems like it may help, but existing archives are (at least partially) available today, through the above search tactic.
For blogwork, it's possible to make an HTML field which accepts a user query, and then the "Submit" button adds "site:" and "inurl" arguments to this term before submitting it to the chosen search engine. Result: Visitors see a Google or Yahoo page, restricted to the FlexCoders archives, showing hits on their desired term.
The first step in doing that is to get the archives. I'm not sure if Yahoo provides these, but I know how to get them otherwise.
The archives are available at http://groups.yahoo.com/group/flexcoders/messages
It's possible to programmatically loop through these to capture them. I'm not sure whether Yahoo Groups' Terms of Service allow for groups to harvest their own information like this.
jd
-- John Dowdell . Macromedia Developer Support . San Francisco CA USA Weblog: http://www.macromedia.com/go/blog_jd Aggregator: http://www.macromedia.com/go/weblogs Technotes: http://www.macromedia.com/support/ Spam killed my private email -- public record is best, thanks.
