Author Topic: FARR plugin: FARR Windows Search 0.3.0 (Read 145994 times)

ewemoa · « **Reply #150 on:** November 21, 2011, 05:26 PM »

Thanks for the clarification.

I have been assuming that there isn't anything extra one needs to do for Windows 7 to get this working -- apart from installing FARR and FARRWindowsSearch (plus FARR restart)...may be there is some pilot error here with the assuming bit.

Signed,
Patiently waiting for phitsc's life [1] to give him sufficient resources to attend to us

[1] Or may be just timezone...

phitsc · « **Reply #151 on:** November 22, 2011, 02:07 AM »

I was indeed asleep

With ws SPACE search term you're using the plugin correctly. What should happen is that you get (roughly) the same results as if you had typed that search term into the 'Search Programs and Files' box after pressing the Win key. On my machine I get the exact same results as the ones in the 'Microsoft Outlook' category. I guess they are the ones most relevant. I could maybe implement grouping as Windows does itself in the plugin as well (i.e. add some results from Outlook as well as some file results).

Now why it does not work for you ewemoa I have no idea to be honest. If you type 'search' into the 'Search Programs and Files' box, there's a 'Find and fix problems with Windows Search' item in the 'Control Panel' category. Maybe you can give this one a try? As you say, I would guess that Windows Search is enabled (and therefore indexing) by default in Windows 7.

phitsc · « **Reply #152 on:** November 22, 2011, 02:10 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).

ewemoa · « **Reply #153 on:** November 22, 2011, 04:38 AM »

If you type 'search' into the 'Search Programs and Files' box, there's a 'Find and fix problems with Windows Search' item in the 'Control Panel' category. Maybe you can give this one a try? As you say, I would guess that Windows Search is enabled (and therefore indexing) by default in Windows 7.
-phitsc (November 22, 2011, 02:07 AM)

Thanks for the clarification and suggestions. Haven't gotten anywhere yet, but intend to keep trying.

justauser · « **Reply #154 on:** November 22, 2011, 08:51 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.
-Armando (November 21, 2011, 11:53 AM)

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

Armando · « **Reply #155 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...

Armando · « **Reply #156 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.

ewemoa · « **Reply #157 on:** November 22, 2011, 07:01 PM »

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

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?

Armando · « **Reply #158 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 ?

Armando · « **Reply #159 on:** November 22, 2011, 08:18 PM »

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

ewemoa · « **Reply #160 on:** November 22, 2011, 08:25 PM »

@Phitsc : I'm also getting the oleaut32.dll error, with an "access violation" message.
-Armando (November 22, 2011, 08:18 PM)

FWIW, I think I got this initially too -- when reading the earlier portions of this thread, I came across the FScript.dll version issue and upgrading it to 1.20 in one of my plugins seemed to resolve it for me. But may be it's a different oleaut32.dll error...

A reference:

https://www.donationcoder.com/forum/index.php?topic=18016.msg230415#msg230415

phitsc · « **Reply #161 on:** November 23, 2011, 02:09 AM »

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

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)

I can only guess. Could it be that 'Search programs and files' does not use the Windows Search Index exclusively, but offers search results from other sources as well, like the Control Panel or the 'All Programs' menu?

phitsc · « **Reply #162 on:** November 23, 2011, 02:12 AM »

... 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 ?
-Armando (November 22, 2011, 08:13 PM)

The option effectively limits the number of items the search query returns. So yes, "Max items to display" would probably be a better choice.

CGA · « **Reply #163 on:** November 23, 2011, 07:00 AM »

Strange, this only searches Outlook mail and mail contacts for me.

phitsc · « **Reply #164 on:** November 23, 2011, 09:26 AM »

Strange, this only searches Outlook mail and mail contacts for me.
-CGA (November 23, 2011, 07:00 AM)

In Win 'Search programs and files' enter Search and select 'Change how Windows searches', that brings up the 'Indexing Options'. What do you see there?

Armando · « **Reply #165 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.

CGA · « **Reply #166 on:** November 24, 2011, 01:00 AM »

Strange, this only searches Outlook mail and mail contacts for me.
-CGA (November 23, 2011, 07:00 AM)

In Win 'Search programs and files' enter Search and select 'Change how Windows searches', that brings up the 'Indexing Options'. What do you see there?
-phitsc (November 23, 2011, 09:26 AM)

This is what I get:

phitsc · « **Reply #167 on:** November 24, 2011, 06:21 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.

-Armando (November 23, 2011, 09:44 AM)

The "Max no items to search" option directly influences the query, i.e. if you specify 25 there, you'll never get more than 25 result items. The sorting I chose is by item date, newest first. So what 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.

Now I neither know how many items Windows searches for for its list. And I don't know the search order either (though I guess it could be newest first). I also don't know if it makes more than one query, e.g. one for Office stuff and another for documents maybe. I could maybe experiment around with such options, or offer the possibility to do your own experimentation (by offering more options as user settings).

Armando · « **Reply #168 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 ?

Armando · « **Reply #169 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).

CGA · « **Reply #170 on:** November 24, 2011, 11:41 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).
-Armando (November 24, 2011, 11:17 AM)

Z: and Y: are mapped network shares containing thousands of indexed documents. There is no problem searching them with Windows Search. I'll have a look at resetting.

Armando · « **Reply #171 on:** November 24, 2011, 12:04 PM »

Z: and Y: are mapped network shares containing thousands of indexed documents. There is no problem searching them with Windows Search. I'll have a look at resetting.
-CGA (November 24, 2011, 11:41 AM)

Yes, exactly, that's what I meant : you potentially have much much more files and folders to index. So there's obviously something wrong with the index settings (it currently says : 9473 items indexed).

Here's the post about resetting that option I was referring to earlier (: "Allow Indexing Service to Index this disk for fast file searching") it was in another thread, sorry about that : https://www.donation....msg268552#msg268552

phitsc · « **Reply #172 on:** November 24, 2011, 03:39 PM »

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
-Armando (November 24, 2011, 10:41 AM)

Ok, that is indeed strange. I'll check it out.

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 ?
-Armando (November 24, 2011, 10:41 AM)

Yes, that's correct.

CGA · « **Reply #173 on:** November 25, 2011, 01:00 AM »

Z: and Y: are mapped network shares containing thousands of indexed documents. There is no problem searching them with Windows Search. I'll have a look at resetting.
-CGA (November 24, 2011, 11:41 AM)

Yes, exactly, that's what I meant : you potentially have much much more files and folders to index. So there's obviously something wrong with the index settings (it currently says : 9473 items indexed).

Here's the post about resetting that option I was referring to earlier (: "Allow Indexing Service to Index this disk for fast file searching") it was in another thread, sorry about that : https://www.donation....msg268552#msg268552

-Armando (November 24, 2011, 12:04 PM)

Tried resetting but unfortunately didn't work. I'm guessing there's something wrong with the way the plugin queries Windows Search as WS is working correctly and finds everything I want. Or maybe it has something to do with the fact that this is a work computer and me not being an administrator on it.

Armando · « **Reply #174 on:** December 07, 2011, 08:05 AM »

Hi phitsc,
Apart from the problems mentioned above, it's working well here (I get the occasional crash but it's manageable).
I once got a problem mentioned by ewemoa : after a crash it's like if the connection between farr and WS was broken and I couldn't get any results in farr. Had to restart Windows (I didn't have the time to find out which service to restart exactly and try a variety of strategies.)

That said, I wonder if it would be possible to add the following special Farr modifiers to affect the results:

(from farr's help file)

+sall
show all matching results, bypassing the normal limit on result count

[...]

-history
do not give bonus scores to items in history

-.
do not show any files, only folders (and aliases)

-\
do not show any matching folders, only files (and aliases)

+\
show matching folders

Thanks

PS : I like the natural language option. Makes the searching a no brainer.