Store site documents and Smart search

Hi all!

I have to build a site where users can easily store, update and retrieve documents (mainly Word, but virtually any type: Excel, PDF, PowerPoint, etc.).

Of course, users should also be able to do some search (basic in the first release, but more sophisticated in the final version).

I'm planning to build the site using Oracle db (8 or above) on Windows.

I'm asking your advice (and/or pointers to any source of general info) with regard to the following questions:

1. Should I keep the documents outside the db or in a blob (or similar) field?
2. Provided that I'd rather avoid tools like WebDb (now Portal, right?) because they seem to me hard to integrate with anything "outside" Oracle, what are the development tools that best suit the task? For example IIS or OAS? ASP, JSP, ColdFusion,...? VB, Java or what?
3. How smart can the search with interMedia (now OracleText, right?) be? I mean, does it "only" somehow rate documents containing one or more search words, or is it also "intelligent" enough to interpret a natural language question (also considering that the site language is NOT English)?

I understand these are very general and broad questions, and I apologize for that. I will greatly appreciate any hint, ideas, source of info, etc. you will provide.

TIA for your attention.

Alessandro Received on Mon Jan 07 2002 - 10:18:06 CST