Understanding the BlueCielo IFilter

An IFilter is a component used by Windows Content Indexing and Windows Search to read the text that is stored in specific file formats.

The following IFilters are included in Windows XP Pro and Windows 2003 Server and later versions of Windows:

• Query.dll: Filters text of numerous file types such as .txt, .xml, and so on.
• OffFilt.dll: Filters text of Microsoft Office file types such as .doc, .xls, .ppt, and so on.

Windows does not include an IFilter for AutoCAD or other popular engineering file formats. Two options are currently available for acquiring an AutoCAD IFilter if one is needed; an IFilter created by the developer of the file format or the IFilter developed by BlueCielo.

The BlueCielo IFilter is based upon the AutoVue 2D Professional viewer. The IFilter supports all formats that the viewer supports such as .dwg, .dgn, and .dxf. A complete list of the supported file formats can be found on the Oracle Technology Network website.

One advantage of the BlueCielo IFilter is that you will probably only need to install and maintain one IFilter for all of the engineering file formats that you use compared to a separate IFilters from different developers for each file format. The viewer and IFilter are included with the Meridian software. The viewer is installed with the client components and the IFilter is installed with the server components.

The BlueCielo IFilter has the following limitations:

• The IFilter is installed by Meridian 2010 and higher along with the other 32-bit server components. To install the IFilter on earlier versions, contact your BlueCielo Partner or BlueCielo Technical Support.
• The IFilter is not installed with the 64-bit server components. However, the 32-bit version can be installed on 64-bit computers as described in Installing on 64-bit computers and will run as a 32-bit process.
• Unicode is not supported. Only files containing English text and files in the language of the locale configured for the computer where the IFilter is installed are filtered correctly. For example, on a computer configured with the German language, English and German text will be filtered correctly, but the language-specific characters of other languages will not be filtered correctly.
• The AutoVue 2D Professional viewer must be installed on the computer that will perform the content indexing. This can be done with the any BlueCielo client setup program. The Meridian Enterprise Office Web Client setup program is the smallest.
• The file types that you want the IFilter to process must be registered manually as described in Registering file types.