Messages

1

General Software Discussion / Re: What is the currently best Desktop Search software?

« on: February 11, 2009, 09:21 AM »

The DocFetcher.exe is 41,5 KB, but that doesn't mean anything, it's just a launcher. You really have to add up everything that is installed on the machine, and according to the website of Autofocus this sums up to 100 MB.

And what do you mean by "100 MB for the index file"? Maybe I'm missing something here, but the way I see it, if a file isn't the result of indexing, then it's part of the base installation (i.e. the program), right?

-qforce (February 11, 2009, 08:44 AM)

C:\Program Files\Aduna -> 90MB
C:\Documents and Settings\UserName\Application Data\Aduna\AutoFocus 5 -> 366MB(this is where index files are maintained/stored)

As for RAM, that depends heavily on the usage: the smarter you build the query the smaller the RAM used and also the number of files resulted from an interrogation: 38.000 files displayed(all .html from all my sources) increased the RAM usage with 60MB...can start with 30MB and use as much as 100+MB.

HTH

2

General Software Discussion / Re: What is the currently best Desktop Search software?

« on: February 11, 2009, 07:48 AM »

100 MB of disk space for the program itself? This looks more like an office suite with built-in desktop search, if you ask me...

-qforce (February 11, 2009, 07:21 AM)

Greetings.

That is the size of the index file and not the program itself. Autofocus.exe(ver. 5.0 for MSWin) has 44,6KB...
Regarding RAM, as much as I could see is that Java is the hungry beast...

Best regards.

3

General Software Discussion / Re: What is the currently best Desktop Search software?

« on: February 10, 2009, 09:14 AM »

Greetings.

What would be the required syntax if one tries to find documents that contain certain strings?
As much as I knew
"word1 word2"
was suppose to that job whereas
word1 word2
is the equivalent of AND, do please correct me if I am wrong.

-aenache36 (February 10, 2009, 02:56 AM)

Just give me a second to check the Lucene documentation...

-qforce (February 10, 2009, 08:18 AM)

My question was about syntax needed to search for strings... but anyway, I understood that DocFetcer's problem is related to unfinished preview implementation...I checked that against strings and it's OK.
BTW, AutoFocus is also base partially on Lucene so that should make it quite familiar to you...

All the best.

4

General Software Discussion / Re: What is the currently best Desktop Search software?

« on: February 10, 2009, 02:56 AM »

The first case is AND, the second one is OR.

-qforce (February 09, 2009, 01:08 PM)

Greetings.

What would be the required syntax if one tries to find documents that contain certain strings?
As much as I knew
"word1 word2"
was suppose to that job whereas
word1 word2
is the equivalent of AND, do please correct me if I am wrong.

Regarding creating and maintaining hierarchies I must admit that somehow I always knew that this isn't for me, I simply don't have the patience for that. In my particular case I have thousands of documents that have a meaningful description at the folder level only and filenames like: Part1.doc, Part2.doc, etc OR complex documents that contain multiple subjects (and that's where proximity search comes very usefull for narrowing down the big initial list...) so it's not even worth trying...

All the best.

5

General Software Discussion / Re: What is the currently best Desktop Search software?

« on: February 09, 2009, 08:33 AM »

Hi,

I'm the project admin of DocFetcher, an Open Source desktop search app. I've noticed in several posts in this thread that there seems to be a real need for e-mail indexing and the likes, which puzzles me a bit. More precisely: Why do you guys need an additional program to search your local e-mails when you could use the search feature of your respective e-mail client instead?

-qforce (February 08, 2009, 04:41 AM)

I agree with you when e-mails are involved but their respective attachments are completely different thing, in this case you do need a DtS software.

On a more general note, are there any people out there who definitely need a desktop search app to locate images, music, videos, etc.? If so, then why don't you use your picture managers, media players, etc. to do that? Wouldn't that be a much more efficient and appropriate way to organize images, music, etc.?

I'd be thankful for any enlightenment about this issue.

-qforce (February 08, 2009, 04:41 AM)

Creating and maintaining hierachies takes time, that'a a fact and probably the most important reason for using DtS. Because I don't want to spend time for that  the rest my answers follow:

a.Images - can be found in many places therefore I use DtS to find them all and then I view them as thumbnails...and thus the decision is easiest
b. Music - here you can, generally search by filename...or metadata/tags. Or, can be leftovers(.ac3 files) from video conversions(DVD->.avi) that, in time, can stack up heavily...
c. Videos - when you use several sources for getting them on your computer they can also get lost in various places, especially when you have more than 1 HDD. For now I have more than 60 movies on my computer...mpeg/avi/iso/vob, you name it.

I also do not think that the typical savvy DtS user is searching mainly for the above but rather for documents with a certain content, at least this is my case. My search ratio is 95%/5% for content/a,v,p.

Btw, DocFetcher 1.0 is (probably) about to be released this month and adds support for MS Office 2007 and WordPerfect.

-qforce (February 08, 2009, 04:41 AM)

I gave it a try for a folder with less than 500 indexable documents and I got 2 messages:
Needed 19 bytes to create the next chunk header, but only found 4 bytes, ignoring rest of data
### Skipped: Not enough memory left in the Java Virtual Machine.
Also I didn't get what I was expecting from a Boolean search:

search:"word1 word2"
returned a diffent set(number) of documents compared to
search:word1 word2
but in preview in both cases I saw enlightened both search terms(???).

So, for now I wish you all the best but I stick to Autofocus

6

General Software Discussion / Re: What is the currently best Desktop Search software?

« on: February 03, 2009, 04:41 PM »

aenache36,

I wasn’t trying to kick you or anything. ...
And now we know otherwise. We cool?

Thanks!

Jim

-J-Mac (February 03, 2009, 04:30 PM)

I thank you for the time taken to reply.
I appreciate your good intentions(you like to share also, don't you?) and I didn't felt mistreated at all. Sometimes things/people are not what they appear to be in the first place.

All the best for now.

7

General Software Discussion / Re: What is the currently best Desktop Search software?

« on: February 03, 2009, 04:33 PM »

...is a "Site Admin" at the ADUNA forum!  Now that IS confusing!  

...
Hey, you must admit that's a weird way to name forum members.

-J-Mac (February 03, 2009, 04:22 PM)

It's just a simple configuration mistake IMO, I will send them an e-mail tomorrow...

In the mean time...you know what to do.
Cheers!

8

General Software Discussion / Re: What is the currently best Desktop Search software?

« on: February 03, 2009, 04:19 PM »

aenache36 (Post above this one), it seems is the Site Administrator for the ADUNA forums, ...

-J-Mac (February 03, 2009, 03:19 PM)

Greetings again,

If you take a look at the forum you will notice that anybody who posted question is listed as Site Admin, now I see what you meant earlier...probably an incorrect setting for JForum 2.1.8(used to be 2.1.6 for a looooong time, probably changed it not long ago...)forum software used.
Chris, listed as Aduna Staff is the actual Site Admin and Master Developer/Software Architect of AutoFocus.

HTH.
Best regards.

9

General Software Discussion / Re: What is the currently best Desktop Search software?

« on: February 03, 2009, 04:03 PM »

This is really a good think for you if you do want to evangelize a product. It means that people will know who to ask questions of when they're seeking a better understanding of that product.

-CWuestefeld (February 03, 2009, 03:52 PM)

Greetings CWuestefeld,

As I mentioned already I like to share and choosing to use the same username was done specifically for that reason, you understood correctly my intentions.

Best regards.

10

General Software Discussion / Re: Using a Desktop Search through the network

« on: February 03, 2009, 03:55 PM »

Greetings.

If you need:
1. free software
2. able to index usual file types and mail(Outlook mainly)
3. able to index web sites
4. able to index network mapped drives
5. able to handle vast amount of documents
6. (very) short learning time
7. the possibility to use the computer all the time(X1/Copernic users know what I am talking about...)
8. client - server(excellent for LAN/ corporate use)
9. Boolean syntax supported, proximity/fuzzy search included
10. Open source/ OS independent(more or less)
11. superb visual display of the results

you might take a look at one marvelous product called AutoFocus, more info you can find at ADUNA.

HTH

11

General Software Discussion / Re: What is the currently best Desktop Search software?

« on: February 03, 2009, 03:38 PM »

aenache36 (Post above this one), it seems is the Site Administrator for the ADUNA forums, and presumably should know proper forum etiquette and disclose his relationship with the software/website he is pushing/recommending.   

Jim

-J-Mac (February 03, 2009, 03:19 PM)

Greetings Jim

I have NO business relations with the makers of AutoFocus.
Please bear in mind that AutoFocus is FREE.
Indeed I have many posts on their forum simply because I like AutoFocus very much, I have experience with it and I like to share it(whenever I have time for that...)
In fact please think for a second that I could have chose any username but I used here aenache36 as well because I know pretty well what I am talking about... and my posts from the forum can prove that.
If you feel that my enthusiasm can be interpreted as a clear sign of improper forum etiquette please feel free to mention what is disturbing you and I will be glad to make all the necessary corrections.
Looking forward to hearing from you.

12

General Software Discussion / Re: What is the currently best Desktop Search software?

« on: February 03, 2009, 03:07 PM »

Greetings.

I doubt that even "the best" of breed DST is all around better that its opponents. Maybe it is a better idea to discuss what is the best application for a particular user profile.
Mine looks like that:
1. free software
2. able to index usual file types and mail(Outlook mainly)
3. able to index web sites
4. able to index network mapped drives
5. able to handle vast amounts of documents, both as number and size
6. (very) short learning time
7. the possibility to use the computer all the time(X1/Copernic users know what I am talking about...)

I found all the above and more:
8. client - server(excellent for LAN/ corporate use)
9. Boolean syntax supported, proximity/fuzzy search included
10. Open source/ OS independent(more or less)
11. superb visual display of the results
etc
in one marvelous product called AutoFocus, more info you can find at ADUNA.

Prior to AutoFocus I use to regard X1 as "THE DTS" of choice...not the case anymore...since 2005 I use AutoFocus on a daily basis for my 110.000(+/-)documents/~80GB hosted both on my HDD and network locations.
BTW, Yahoo DTS had a beta version that could index mapped network drives...and that was working nice for me but after one upgrade I was bitterly disappointed to notice that the feature is no longer available for the free version but only in the commercial version of X1 - and that is how I stared to dig for a new DTS software . Does anyone had a similar experience?

What can I say more? That AutoFocus is not the best of the best, file preview and the ability to index within archives is still under development but certainly it is THE  BEST for me.

HTH.
Best regards.