ScanFS: an alternative to locate? Free indexer, file previews and other niceties

[urlwolf]

Here's an alternative to locate.

ScanFS

it's a free indexer; What does it have over locate? media file previews, live preview of file contents based on keywords or regular expressions, exports search results to excel, etc

Features
▪ Search in single directories or directory groups
▪ Search and replace in multiple files
▪ Supports simple or regular expressions for filenames and file contents
▪ Live preview of file contents, without the need to rescan the file system
▪ Live preview of images
▪ Windows Explorer integration (by clicking the search button, or pressing F3)
▪ Search using multiple file patterns
▪ Save/Load search criteria
▪ Full unicode support (filenames, file contents, search results, search and replace)
▪ Refine search mode (search within catalogs or existing results)
▪ Copy/Move/Delete/Rename files and/or directories
▪ Drag-drop support, e.g. drop files in explorer windows
▪ Can be used as a visual replacement for the command-line grep comman

[icekin]

Hoping someone writes a FARR plugin for this one too.

[Dormouse]

Any advantages over Dopus Search (for those of us with Dopus)?

[urlwolf]

Hey, this thing can find text and show a preview.
It can use regular expressions (!).

looks like a new-found jewel!
I don't use vista, I know it has some search facilities, but are they comparable to scanFS?

Great to find music duplicates too.

@Dormouse: Last time I used Dopus, it didn't create an index of your files (it just searches them linearly). Maybe they have added a catalog later, I don't know.

[nosh]

It took over 20 seconds to show me a thumbnail preview of a single jpg, little under 5 MB in size. 
Perhaps it's more functional if you work with more text and less multimedia.

[TucknDar]

so, let's see an extensive comparison between the two!!

anyone?

[Dormouse]

@Dormouse: Last time I used Dopus, it didn't create an index of your files (it just searches them linearly). Maybe they have added a catalog later, I don't know.

Dopus incorporates a GDS option if you have it installed. That does have an index and is very fast. Results come up in the normal finder window with all the options.