Match Alias First?

[CatamountJack]

Is there any way to make FARR reliably match an alias before performing a search?

For instance, I have an alias called "enable".  Usually I type "en" and press tab and it auto-completes to "enable".  Lately, about 50% of the time, when I type "en" it auto-completes to something else FARR is searching for (in my Program Files folder, since that's the first search directory).

I'm typing rather fast, and it seems like if I type slower the program will match the alias after a second or so and then it works - I'm not sure why the delay.

If possible, I'd rather not have to type any kind of extra prefix or anything to force an alias match (I like just having to type the first couple of characters in most cases), and some/most of the time it just works anyway.

Suggestions?

[jgpaiva]

Does increasing the score of the alias to something outrageous help?

[d4ni]

You could edit (or add if you don't use it now) the Regular Expression to ^en (.*)$. I don't know what the alias is supposed to do, but this way 'en' will definitely match the alias.

[CatamountJack]

I increased the score to 9999, but it didn't make any difference this morning.  Thanks for the suggestion though.

It seems I run into this most when my computer is multi-tasking and running a bit slower than normal.

I've added the extra regular expression to what I already had there, hopefully that will fix it - but I dread doing the same thing for all the rest of my aliases as well, I have a bunch.

[jgpaiva]

Maybe mouser will reply to this and explain why that happens

[mouser]

aliases are always matched first
and always shown before any other matches.

so this should be impossible:

Lately, about 50% of the time, when I type "en" it auto-completes to something else FARR is searching for (in my Program Files folder, since that's the first search directory).

maybe something else is happening.. can you observe next time what exactly it is matching against instead of the alias?

[d4ni]

I still believe you should never index search through directories like %ProgramFiles% and %windir% as it doesn't seem to make sense. (Mouser, it seems like an idea to add some kind of indexing technique for people who like to search though huge folders like these)

For example, my C:\Programs has 50 folders (top-level) and contains 55,000 files, of which you probably want to find 50 (the .exe's of programs)? Searching through 55,000 files to find 50 just seems inefficient at the very least. It's most likely even worse with %windir%

[mouser]

d4ni is right, those folders are too big for FARR to normally search through except in worst case scenario.
many people like that FARR has no indexing but yes, indexing will be added, as an OPTION, for such cases in the future.

[d4ni]

Oh definitely make it an option, please keep the realtime searching  . Also, try to make it possible to have FARR search both the index and the search folders. This way, it is possible to search through the index of major folders (if desired) and the Search Folders at the same time.

[CatamountJack]

maybe something else is happening.. can you observe next time what exactly it is matching against instead of the alias?

-mouser (September 16, 2008, 10:46 AM)

It has matched against other less apparent things, although I'm having a harder time reproducing it when I want to.  Lately though (slightly different problem), when I type "en" it's matching against a file called "ServiceAffiliateManagement.exe" - which is in my history.  In this particular case, this history match shows up first in the list and stays there - it isn't superseded by the alias after waiting a few seconds.  When I took that file out of my history, it working (more) normally, but the original problem still exists.

Does history get preference over alias matches?

I do have "stop search on exact alias match" and "stop search on exact regex match" both turned on.  My regex for my "enable" alias is ^(enable|en) (.*)? which I think should match "en" directly, although my regex-fu isn't great.

[CatamountJack]

Another followup...  I also have a "disable" alias set up.  Tonight when I typed "dis" and tab to complete, I would get "C:\WINDOWS\system32\cmd.exe " come up.  I repeated it immediately three times.  So, I went back and typed it slower.  When I type "d", I get a match to command prompt, when I type "di", then the disable alias will come up first in the list.   (EDIT:  Now, having done that, "disable" comes up no matter how fast I typed it.  It looks like the problem happens the first time I use an alias after FARR started, or if I haven't used a particular alias in awhile.)

It appears, maybe?, that I'm typing so fast, it matches the first letter immediately, but it doesn't recognize the next (or next two) letters fast enough to match what I really want before I type tab (so tab is completing the match on the first letter only).

Two questions - should "d" by itself be matching the "disable" alias first?  Or is the issue only that I'm typing faster than it can finish making the following matches?

Incidentally, I'm not sure why the command prompt entry is matching before everything else...  other letters do it as well.  C, O, M, N, D, P, and T all match command prompt as the first result.  Only A matches something else first.  How does FARR decide which entry to match on the first letter?

Hope this helps.  Thanks!

[CatamountJack]

Is there anything else I can add to help figure this out?  Or is this working as expected?

Thanks!

[mouser]

i'm just not sure.. let me do another update or do and then i'll come back to this.

[CatamountJack]

Thanks mouser, much appreciated!  Keep me posted if there is any more info I can get for you.