Messages

151

FARR Plugins and Aliases / Re: FARR plugin: FARR Windows Search 0.3.0

« on: November 24, 2011, 11:17 AM »

This is what I get: 

-CGA (November 24, 2011, 01:00 AM)

You don't have much indexed there. You could click on "Modify" and see what folders and files are being indexed.

Also look at one of my previous posts where I explain how to reset the indexing process (you might have to re-enable indexing for folders before you can do anything).

152

FARR Plugins and Aliases / Re: FARR plugin: FARR Windows Search 0.3.0

« on: November 24, 2011, 10:41 AM »

Thanks phitsc.

if you specify 25 there, you'll never get more than 25 result items.

Yes I understood that. However, what I don't understand is :

A)
- I set 45 as the max
- I search for some term ("Denise")
- There are much more then 25 items found (e.g. : status bar says  75)
- But farr shows only a few : 32

Ok, so this could be because of what you said earlier. But there's more :

B)
- I set 100 as the max
- I search for the same term ("Denise)
- Now status bar says that it found 100 results (why ? before it said 75 and the max was set to 45)
- farr shows only a few : 49 (Why 49, which is more than the previous 32, and at the same time doesn't seem to increase proportionally -- well not in an obvious way)

In any case, setting the max displayed items to 100 or more helps getting what I want, but there's still something funny about the way windows search and farr interact.

If I search for the same term in the normal windows search interface, I get 538 results. Granted, some might be shortcuts etc., but it's still a huge difference (compared to 100 or 75). Strange  
 

FarrWindowsSearch will query for is the 25 (or whatever you choose) most recently changed items in the Search Index, matching your search terms. FARR will then show you however many of these as you've specified in the FARR Display Options. I think FARR will also do its own filtering, e.g. if you have two file results point at the same file (don't know if that is a practical case) it will end up only once in the list.

-phitsc (November 24, 2011, 06:21 AM)

Thanks for the precisions. I got that you chose to present the most recently changed items. I'm ok with that, as long as "terms matching" has the topmost priority... Right ?

153

General Software Discussion / Re: automated back up software

« on: November 24, 2011, 12:04 AM »

There's also Bvckup.

154

FARR Plugins and Aliases / Re: FARR plugin: FARR Windows Search 0.3.0

« on: November 23, 2011, 09:44 AM »

Thanks phitsc

What's weird is that farr says (e.g.) "28 results found in 0s", but it shows only 5...
An I also compared with the normal Windows Search interface, and it does (usually) show me much more results. As the others have reported. I haven't done that many tests -- lack of time. But I can confirm that there's some problem. I never noticed before as I was mainly using it for contacts and recent emails.

So results in farr seem to be filtered in some weird way.

EDIT : I might be mistaken, but it seems that the "Max. items to search" option not only reduces the items to be shown (e.g. : 50), but also shows only a fraction of the result, no matter how many were found, and even if the number is < to the defined max. E.g. : if ws find only 28 results, it'll show 5, if ws finds 50, it'll show 20, etc.

155

FARR Plugins and Aliases / Re: FARR plugin: FARR Windows Search 0.3.0

« on: November 22, 2011, 08:18 PM »

@Phitsc : I'm also getting the oleaut32.dll error, with an "access violation" message.

156

FARR Plugins and Aliases / Re: FARR plugin: FARR Windows Search 0.3.0

« on: November 22, 2011, 08:13 PM »

I was able to test on a different installation of Windows 7 and had more success -- get results in FARR now

-ewemoa (November 22, 2011, 07:01 PM)

Cool.

It is still puzzling to me though why via the windows key, "cmd" gives the result "cmd.exe" but with FARRWindowsSearch I get nothing.  Similar with "regedit".

Any ideas?

-ewemoa (November 22, 2011, 07:01 PM)

Same here... And... no idea !   I tried playing with the "Max items to search" option -- it shouldn't be related anyway --, with no success (predictably).
I'm actually not sure about the wording of that option -- shouldn't it be "Max items to display" ? Or maybe I'm not understanding what it does ?

157

FARR Plugins and Aliases / Re: FARR plugin: FARR Windows Search 0.3.0

« on: November 22, 2011, 11:23 AM »

Hi phitsc, I still get the EAccess violation error (mentioned in the thread earlier).

-Armando (November 21, 2011, 11:53 AM)

Ok, thanks for letting me know. So I'll go over a second possible source of crashes next (making sure I use the Search API correctly, especially checking all exception cases).

-phitsc (November 22, 2011, 02:10 AM)

Note that I'm still using it -- as for quickly searching Outlook, it's the best way around.

158

FARR Plugins and Aliases / Re: FARR plugin: FARR Windows Search 0.3.0

« on: November 22, 2011, 11:09 AM »

I gave the alias a try "(ws (.*)" and now it works!

-justauser (November 22, 2011, 08:51 AM)

It's actually: ^ws (.*)
I guess that's what you meant, but just making it clear here, in case someone else tries it... 

159

General Software Discussion / Re: Love WorkFlowy, hate web apps.. What to do?

« on: November 21, 2011, 07:30 PM »

Tranglos, I've also been searching for a long time for something like this.  I'm familiar enough with you to say that IQ would probably be overkill for you, but it doesn't hurt to try. 

-superboyac (November 17, 2011, 11:24 AM)

My 2c : While I agree that IQ could be overkill for very very simple usage (e.g. you just want to be able to type text, without any needs for an outline), I can tell you that Pierre himself uses IQ for mostly simple things (with the occasional complex stuff, of course)... And he's the developer.

The cool thing with IQ is that you don't need to use the fancy stuff to take advantage of some the flexibility (e.g. : if you're just interested in an app allowing you to add Boolean/check box felds, then so be it...).

But then, if later your needs expand, you're not stuck trying to find another solution, export or sync your data, etc, etc.

160

FARR Plugins and Aliases / Re: FARR plugin: FARR Windows Search 0.3.0

« on: November 21, 2011, 04:44 PM »

Yes, you got my suggestions perfectly. Sorry if I wasn't clear...
What you do is exactly what should be done ws, space, and then the query -- which is what one would expect anyway.
Not sure what's going on in your case (or justauser's) case. Strange.

161

FARR Plugins and Aliases / Re: FARR plugin: FARR Windows Search 0.3.0

« on: November 21, 2011, 11:53 AM »

Hi phitsc, I still get the EAccess violation error (mentioned in the thread earlier).

@ewemoa : I'm using it on XP sp3. Works well. except for the errors.
Normally you need to add a space after ws before typing ?
Did you try changing the default alias ? I changed it to ^ws (.*), so actual search starts when I insert a space after "ws" [EDIT : Note that this shouldn't be necessary -- I do that as a precaution]. And I configured ctr+alt+space to automatically insert ws[space] in the farr text box.

162

FARR Plugins and Aliases / Re: FARR plugin: FARR Windows Search 0.3.0

« on: November 20, 2011, 10:57 PM »

One thing I'm wondering, and didn't have the time to research fully : is Windows Search 4.0 on XP exactly the same as the one used by Windows 7 ?

163

FARR Plugins and Aliases / Re: FARR plugin: FARR Windows Search 0.3.0

« on: November 20, 2011, 10:48 PM »

Hi phitsc,

Sorry again for my late answer. I'm having troubles keeping everything up to date these days... 

Of course I want to give FarrWindowsSearch another try. It's currently working pretty well. I turned on the natural language search and I like it !

Unfortunately, I still get crashes. Crashes almost always happen when I'm typing fast and making corrections to my queries. I got a memory exceptions error and a crash without any message. However, it seems more stable. Sorry if I'm not more precise... Just didn't get the time to note the first error when it occurred.

I didn't see the OLEAUT32.dll access violation or EAccess violation errors... yet.

Let's see if I can get more specific in the next few days.

164

Find And Run Robot / Re: FARR and Indexing Option - Feedback Requested

« on: November 19, 2011, 05:41 PM »

Just wondering : who uses or has tried phitsc's farr Windows Search's plugin ? Here, apart from the  occasional crashes (EAccessViolation : I seem to be the minority with that problem), it's pretty quick searching about 190 000 files (it's not that much... but...) and a 1.53 GB PST file's content : usually 1s, but might take up to 4s for longer queries. I can definitely live with that.

165

Find And Run Robot / Re: FARR and Indexing Option - Feedback Requested

« on: November 19, 2011, 05:11 PM »

Is it abandonware? Nope, it is something more/worse than that.

My suggestion: it's "googleware".

In this thread, Google Desktop Search is an example, and so (apparently) might Everything be.

-IainB (November 18, 2011, 10:45 PM)

AFAIK Google do have a three years "deprecation period" for their "out of the lab" products. And those 3 years aren't set in stone and could transform into more years, depending on the APIs popularity. That said, it wouldn't be a smart move to start using GDS now that it's been discontinued, but for those using it, it's not "dead" per se. It's just... dying.

In any case, I never liked Google Desktop search... In my extensive personal tests (while I was doing research for my PhD.), GDS missed a lot of content. The only desktop search software that didn't miss a thing was Archivarius. So I use Archivarius for content indexing (except for Outlook, which it indexes much too slowly for my taste) & windows search/everything for all file names and Outlook indexing. (Archivarius is far from being as user friendly as the other Desktop search software out there, and it doesn't index in real time -- you need to set it on a schedule... But it works well and is reliable -- and that was my main priority.)

166

Find And Run Robot / Re: FARR and Indexing Option - Feedback Requested

« on: November 19, 2011, 04:57 PM »

Strange, my experiences with Windows Search have been consistently awful, ever since Vista and including Win7. Maybe I should give it another try, but it's hard to trust it after blatantly missing files I was clearly and easily able to find with other tools (and simple folder browsing).

Everything is certainly not the only indexer/search option, it's just the best and fastest, in my experience (by far). As for its status, sure it's a good indexer already, so what more needs to be done, right? Well, how about icons/thumbnails for file types, for example? On the developer's list, I know that much, but after a year of no updates, well one starts to wonder if anything more will ever happen. How important is it? Not terribly, I guess, but future OS or file system upgrades may break it, for example. It's a real bummer when you come to rely deeply on a tool - and Everything is exactly the kind of tool that gets deep into your regular computer experience - and then it goes away. Hard to adjust.

- Oshyan

-JavaJones (November 18, 2011, 09:32 PM)

Don't know what the problem could be with windows search. I haven't thoroughly tested it [Edit: well, I did, but not recently], but it seems reliable here. Note that i use it only to 1- index file names and properties, 2- fully index Outlook's PST.

Usually what happens with Windows Search is that (at least on XP) some folders/file have the file indexing feature specifically disabled. To change that you have to basically deselect the "Allow Indexing Service to Index this disk for fast file searching" in the drive's/folder's property, Cancel the deselection process when it starts, and then reselect it and let it do its job. That solved the unreachable files problems on my side, a while ago.

But maybe you've tried all that already, and the problem is elsewhere.

As far as everything goes... Well, I haven't said it is "the" solution. And I agree with the all the points you make. But would farr need all those everything features, or would it need only its indexing capabilities ? (BTW, here I get icons with the everything plugin for farr, but maybe I misunderstood what you're saying.)

167

FARR Plugins and Aliases / Re: FARR plugin: FARR Windows Search 0.1.0

« on: November 17, 2011, 04:52 PM »

Cool -- and if it works with XP, even better !
Yes, I already had a look at the syntax -- much more intuitive and more concise.
I don't know what others think about it, but it seems like the better choice.

168

FARR Plugins and Aliases / Re: FARR plugin: FARR Windows Search 0.1.0

« on: November 17, 2011, 10:55 AM »

Hi phitsc, Sorry about the delay.

Yes, natural search actually seems like a better way. I haven't got the chance to read a whole lot about it, but... is this function limited to Vista/Win 7 ? I have the feeling it is. But maybe it's just something you can enable and that's completely independent from the OS... Haven't checked the API.

In any case, offering it as an option can't do any harm !

P.S. : I haven't upgraded to Windows 7 yet. I just don't have enough time to do so these days (contrarily to what I hear around me, it takes me much, much more than a few hours to reinstall and configure an OS and all the software -- no to mention the inevitable compatibility headaches !

169

Find And Run Robot / Re: Some shortcut keys don't work anymore.

« on: November 15, 2011, 12:12 PM »

+1... 

170

FARR Plugins and Aliases / Re: FARR plugin: FARR Windows Search 0.1.0

« on: November 15, 2011, 12:01 PM »

One thing that could be done to make this plugin more powerful : when the keyword is written in farr's textbox (WS), offer options in the results :

1- search all
2- search emails
3- search contacts
4- search documents
5- etc.
...
9- show keywords list

User presses the corresponding number and this (e.g. F3) appears in the text box

ws Kind:contacts

...and starts to write what to search.

ws Kind:contacts Helen

...and of course farr shows the corresponding results.

What this does is : 1- narrows down search more easily when one has a vast number of data to search through, 2- teaches the user that some keywords exist and can be used with windows search.

The "9- show keyword list" option there would show all common keywords (cheat sheet) to use with WS... Either as a popup or as HTML in the result area.


This could be set as an option in the plugin "options" maybe, for those who think it's a drag...

Anyway... That was my suggestion of the day.

171

Find And Run Robot / Re: FARR and Indexing Option - Feedback Requested

« on: November 15, 2011, 11:51 AM »

Hi Phitsc - I like the integration with farr. I think the focus should be put on that.

My only gripe is that it still crashes farr too often in my specific case (using XP sp3). I know I'm not the majority (and for those without any stability problems, I wonder why they don't use it... It's SUPER FAST). If only I knew what did it (the problem), I'd use it much more. More than "Everything" as I don't have the accentuated chars problem with Windows Search...

In any case I'll go to the other thread as this one is dedicated to farr's index.

172

General Software Discussion / Re: Love WorkFlowy, hate web apps.. What to do?

« on: November 13, 2011, 01:00 PM »

Hi Tranglos -- just to let you know that there's another build, W3,  adding a couple new useful features and solving a few problems (like clipping when IE9 is installed).

173

Find And Run Robot / Re: FARR and Indexing Option - Feedback Requested

« on: November 12, 2011, 09:10 PM »

I'd be very surprised if windows search got worse and not better... or if it even got abandoned. It's one very important function of windows 7.

[EDIT : just fully read IanB's post. I pretty much agree...]

174

Find And Run Robot / Re: FARR and Indexing Option - Feedback Requested

« on: November 12, 2011, 09:04 PM »

However... Relying on a 3rd party could mean have an indexing option rapidly with minimal efforts on mouser's part. And if the 3rd party options doen't get updated/don't work after a while (a couple years?), mouser can then develop his own indexing mechanism...

-Armando (November 12, 2011, 07:16 PM)

Isn't that exactly what happened with the Everything plugin?

- Oshyan

-JavaJones (November 12, 2011, 08:32 PM)

Not sure what you're referring to... but IMO : No... as the current "integration" with Everything hasn't been worked on by mouser but by some other developper who -- while doing a great job -- is not the main FARR coder... And might not be able to / have the incentive to work on these little details.

Otherwise, if you're referring to Everything relative abandonment... Maybe, but it seems already perfectly usable as an indexer as it is.  And in any case, Everything is not the only solution out there.


[EDIT] That said, in an ideal world, I'm all for an indexer purely developed by mouser. It's just that, given the choice, for similar performance and functionality... a) in 2 weeks b) or in a year... I'd choose the first option.

175

Find And Run Robot / Re: FARR and Indexing Option - Feedback Requested

« on: November 12, 2011, 07:58 PM »

True.

But right now, there is some support for accentuated chars. I hope it won't be less than that. (E.g. : The Everything plugin, for some reasons doesn't allow me to run/open any file with accentuated chars -- Everything as such doesn't have that problem.)