Search Application in Flex / MXML

This is a simple example demonstrating how to use the Search API in a Flex application. Before you continue, make sure that you've followed the instructions on how to set up the Yahoo! ASTRA Web APIs library.

First, create a new MXML Application. Then, add the search service to your application, as follows. Note: If using code completion when entering the SearchService tag, the XML namespace will automatically be set for you. If necessary, add it manually.

<yahoo:SearchService id="searchService" applicationId="YourAppID"/>

Next, add your UI input elements, such as a TextInput:

<mx:TextInput id="criteriaTextInput"/>

Then bind the TextInput to the service you've already created:

<yahoo:SearchService id="searchService" applicationId="YourAppID" query="{criteriaTextInput.text}"/>

Also, bind a List to the results of the search:

<mx:List dataProvider="{ searchService.lastResult }"/>

Finally, create a Button to call the send() method:

<mx:Button id="searchButton" label="Search!" click="searchService.send()"/>

Now you have the power of Yahoo! Search instantly available in your application.

Search Application in Flash 9 / Pure AS3

First, import the required classes:

import com.yahoo.webapis.search.SearchService; import com.yahoo.webapis.search.WebSearchResult; import com.yahoo.webapis.search.events.SearchResultEvent; import com.yahoo.webapis.search.events.SearchFaultEvent; import com.yahoo.webapis.search.params.SearchParams;

Next, declare a search service in ActionScript:

public var searchService:SearchService = new SearchService();

And declare a SearchParams object to hold the parameters:

public var searchParams:SearchParams = new SearchParams();

Also, you'll want to set up methods for when the search has results, and possibly check for errors:

public function returnResult(event:SearchResultEvent):void { trace(event); //Do something, like set a List's dataProvider property to event.result; } public function returnFault(event:SearchFaultEvent):void { trace(event.fault.faultString); }

Set up the event listeners for the above methods:

searchService.addEventListener(SearchResultEvent.RESULT, returnResult); searchService.addEventListener(SearchFaultEvent.FAULT, returnFault);

You may want to encapsulate the search call in a function:

public function search():void { //set your query searchParams.query = "stuff to search for"; //search! searchService.searchWeb(searchParams); }

Finally, set up some UI elements to invoke the search, like text fields and buttons, and you're on your way!

View this example live in your browser.

Download the Yahoo! ASTRA Web APIs library to access full source code for this example.

Summary

This covers only the most basic usage of Yahoo! Web Search. Remember, however, that this API includes Image/Video/Audio search, News, Local search, as well as Term Extraction/Context Search, Spelling Suggestions, and many others. You could easily build a spell checker, news reader, media player, and countless others with this simple and robust API. Your only limit is your imagination.

To see other examples of this API, or to post your own masterpiece, check out the application gallery.