Component Repository Browser : A study on efficient searching mechanisms for searching and retrieving software components across different remote repositories

This work investigates efficient searching mechanisms for searching and retrieving software components across different remote repositories and implements a supporting prototype called "Component Repository Browser" using the plug-in based Eclipse technology for PROGRESS-IDE. The prototype enables users to search the ProCom components and to import the desired components from a remote repository server over different protocols such as HTTP, HTTPS, and/or SVN. Several component searching mechanisms and suggestions were studied and examined such as keyword, facet-based search, folksonomy classification, and signature matching, from which we selected keyword search along with facet-based searching technique to help component searchers to efficiently find the desired components from a remote repository.