Frequently Asked Questions

If your question isn't answered here, please feel free to contact us on support@shuffletext.com, or visit out support forums.

• What's the different between Express and Enterprise?
• How easy is it to integrate Highlight Express?
• How do I get Highlight Express integrated in to my ASP.NET application?
• What about Windows Forms applications?
• What kind of data does Highlight Express work with?
• Do you have a non .NET version of the product?
• Is Highlight Express a full text search engine?
• On Express, what happens after 10,000 rows?
• How does the licensing work?
• What is your return policy?

What's the difference between Express and Enterprise

Firstly, Highlight Enterprise is currently in development, and not available yet. However, Highlight Express and Enterprise share similar source bases and API's, but are vastly different in the problems they solve. Express focuses on in-memory searches over collections of data from 1 to 10,000 rows long, while Enterprise integrates with SQL Server to achieve fuzzy searching over datasets up to 1,000,000 (one million) rows!

When Enterprise becomes available, it will support clustering backends, redundancy, full administration and management features, along with name synonym dictionaries for the ultimate support in Fuzzy Name searches - this means searches for "Robert" will also match against "Bob", "Bobby" and "Bobbie".

For more information on Highlight Enterprise, please contact us, alternatively, you can sign up for the beta program.

How easy is it to integrate Highlight Express?

Integrating Highlight Express in to your application is brilliantly simple: a few lines of code is usually all it takes. The Highlight Express API is based on your classic System.Collections.Generic.List and System.Collections.Generic.Dictionary API's - we've our algorithms through one simple Search() API.

Use these Highlight API's like you would any List or Dictionary collection, and call the Search() method when required - you get back a ranked List of items that best match the search terms. Easy!

How do I get Highlight Express integrated in to my ASP.NET application?

The Highlight Express installer contains an example ASP.NET application that integrates Highlight Express. The sample shows how to hook an ASP.NET Text Box up to Highlight through AJAX (Asynchronous Javascript and XML), allowing for in browser incremental search. The sample ASP.NET application can be found in the Documentation directory in your Highlight Install path.

What about Windows Forms applications?

The Highlight Express installer comes with an example Windows Forms Application that integrates Highlight Express - full source included. The sample shows how to hook a Windows Forms Text Box up to Highlight Express, allowing for incremental search over a 5,000 row dataset. The results are then displayed through a Windows Forms GridView.

What kind of data does Highlight Express work with?

Highlight Express will search on all types of data, but it works best on rows of strings with 1 to 5 columns (or words) of data. A list of names is a good example of where Highlight will shine. You can take a list of names, split them up in to First Name, Middle Name and Last Name, add them to the Highlight Express collection, and then search.

Lists of string based data like Countries, Cities, Company Names and Product Names are other excellent examples of where Highlight Express really adds value.

Do you have a non .NET version of the product?

Highlight Enterprise (currently in development) will have an API exposed by WebServices, allowing it to be consumed by languages and platforms that are not on the .NET Framework.

We currently have beta customers that are leveraging Highlight Enterprise through PHP on a Linux backend. Please contact us if you'd like more information.

Is Highlight Express a full text search engine?

Highlight Express is not a full text search product. We call it "short text search" - great for fuzzy matching on lists of string based data.

Highlight Enterprise is likely to support Full Text Fuzzy Search. For more information on Highlight Enterprise, or to sign up for the beta program, please contact us.

On Express, what happens after 10,000 rows?

Nothing. We are no longer limiting how many rows Express can handle. However, performance mileage may vary on fuzzy searches. We've seen up to 100,000 rows work fine, achieving 60-70 searches per second (more than a user can type for the incremental search experience). Soundex searches (a simpler form of fuzzy searching) works well with up to 500k rows. As we've said, mileage may vary, and 10,000 rows is currently what we support.

How does the licensing work?

Highlight Express comes in three licensing flavors: Free Intranet (or Internal) and Royalty Free.
The Free license is for non-commercial use only. Using the non-commercial license on Ad-supported websites is currently against the license conditions (however, drop us an e-mail and we'll work something out for smaller operations).

An Intranet license allows you to use Highlight Express in applications that are internal to your company, and not exposed to the public. You can use it in Intranet Web Applications, Internal desktop apps and more. Intranet licenses are use restricted to your company or organization employees and subsidiaries only.

A Royalty Free license allows you to use Highlight in any application, distributed by any means. If you have a public facing website, or an application that can be purchased or used by consumers outside of your company or organisation, you need a Royalty Free license.

In summary:

Free Non-Commercial

• Full use of Highlight Express for any non-commercial, non-profit or academic use.
• Free to distribute, as long as your app is free!
• No crippling features or trial version. It's just free.

Intranet

• Full use of Highlight Express for any application internal to your organisation/company/government.
• Install it anywhere within your company/organisation/government firewall, on as many developer/production PC's as you like.
• All users of the Highlight enabled application(s) must be employees/subcontractors (or close affiliates) to your company/organisation.
• No restrictions on Developer PC's - unlimited Developer license
• One license valid per internal product.

Royalty Free

• Unlimited public (and private) distribution of any application that has Highlight integrated.
• No restrictions on Developer PC's - unlimited Developer license
• License is valid for one public product. Multiple public products require multiple Royalty Free licenses.
• License is valid for unlimited private (company/organisation/government) applications. This means you only need one Royalty Free license for multiple internal private applications.

What is your return policy?

We offer a 30-day full money back satisfaction guarantee. If you're not happy with any ShuffleText product, simply e-mail support@shuffletext.com with your name (or your companies name) and we'll refund the purchase through PayPal within 5 business days - no questions asked

If you have any problems with any products, please drop us an e-mail or check out the support forums. We work hard for our customers, and are proud of the fact we haven't had to do a return yet!