Author Topic: FARR plugin: FARR Windows Search 0.3.0 (Read 194,704 times)

Armando · « **Reply #125 on:** January 28, 2011, 04:38 PM »

It's a bit drastic but I guess it's the best way to find out if there's some other plugin involved. I'll try that.

Armando · « **Reply #126 on:** January 31, 2011, 03:17 AM »

Ok, good news : no crash for the last 2 days.

I'll guess I'll start re-enabling plugins one after the other. Maybe one every 2nd day.

Armando · « **Reply #127 on:** January 31, 2011, 03:20 AM »

That was quick. I re-enabled Farr Alt-Tab... Used farr windows search a few times (intensively)... And farr just vanished... Not even an error message.

More later.

Armando · « **Reply #128 on:** January 31, 2011, 03:25 AM »

~~Yup, got the EAccess violation again. Will deactivate Farr Alt Tab again and see if Farr Windows Search is still as solid.~~

Armando · « **Reply #129 on:** January 31, 2011, 03:30 AM »

Nope... I guess I haven't been rough enough before. I was able to crash it, eventually, without any plugins loaded. Sorry about that.

I got both errors : eaccess, and the oleaut32.dll one.

It seems somewhat more stable though.

phitsc · « **Reply #130 on:** January 31, 2011, 10:15 AM »

Ok, good to know anyway. Thanks for checking it all out!

Gailin · « **Reply #131 on:** February 15, 2011, 06:29 PM »

Thank you for the plugin. What an immensely useful addition to FARR

phitsc · « **Reply #132 on:** February 15, 2011, 07:56 PM »

Quote from: Gailin on February 15, 2011, 06:29 PM

Thank you for the plugin. What an immensely useful addition to FARR

You're welcome! Glad you like it

leeyaunlong · « **Reply #133 on:** February 20, 2011, 03:48 PM »

phitsc:
when I used FARR windwos search, the FARR will freezing. Can you help me?
My Environment:
WinXP SP3, WDS4.0, I also updated fscript.dll to 1.20.

BTW: In Win7, has no the problem.

phitsc · « **Reply #134 on:** February 20, 2011, 08:29 PM »

Quote from: leeyaunlong on February 20, 2011, 03:48 PM

phitsc:
when I used FARR windwos search, the FARR will freezing. Can you help me?
My Environment:
WinXP SP3, WDS4.0, I also updated fscript.dll to 1.20.

BTW: In Win7, has no the problem.

Does it freeze no matter what you search for? or only certain searches? Do you have Outlook installed on the PC where it freezes?

leeyaunlong · « **Reply #135 on:** February 21, 2011, 01:28 AM »

Quote from: phitsc on February 20, 2011, 08:29 PM

Quote from: leeyaunlong on February 20, 2011, 03:48 PM
phitsc:
when I used FARR windwos search, the FARR will freezing. Can you help me?
My Environment:
WinXP SP3, WDS4.0, I also updated fscript.dll to 1.20.

BTW: In Win7, has no the problem.

Does it freeze no matter what you search for? or only certain searches? Do you have Outlook installed on the PC where it freezes?

When I search any word, it will be happen. The FARR will hang up.
Yes, I installed outlook. But I also opened outlook.
In same time, I can use WDS to search any thing.

Armando · « **Reply #136 on:** November 15, 2011, 06:01 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.

phitsc · « **Reply #137 on:** November 15, 2011, 09:40 PM »

A good idea Armando. I was recently thinking about using natural language search (NQS) instead of the advanced query syntax (AQS) the plugin uses now, or at least offer it as an option. Would that be something you'd prefer to your suggestion, or not?

Armando · « **Reply #138 on:** November 17, 2011, 04:55 PM »

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 !

phitsc · « **Reply #139 on:** November 17, 2011, 07:53 PM »

No problem Armando.

Natural language search basically allows you to search like this:

email from Carl or Ed received this week

instead of like this:

kind:email from:(Carl OR Ed) received:this week

According to MSDN it's supported starting from Windows XP with SP2.

Armando · « **Reply #140 on:** November 17, 2011, 10:52 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.

phitsc · « **Reply #141 on:** November 18, 2011, 10:54 PM »

Armando, would you mind giving FarrWindowsSearch another try? I've gotten rid of one possible cause of crashing. The problems you've experienced could well have some other cause, but I need to start somewhere ... I've also implemented natural language search, as an option. It's on by default.

Armando · « **Reply #142 on:** November 21, 2011, 04:48 AM »

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.

Armando · « **Reply #143 on:** November 21, 2011, 04:57 AM »

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 ?

justauser · « **Reply #144 on:** November 21, 2011, 12:40 PM »

I can't get the latest to work at all. Using Windows 7 x64. Every time I type ws a space and then anything it freezes and crashes.

phitsc · « **Reply #145 on:** November 21, 2011, 12:44 PM »

Quote from: justauser on November 21, 2011, 12:40 PM

I can't get the latest to work at all. Using Windows 7 x64. Every time I type ws a space and then anything it freezes and crashes.

But the one before that was working fine?

I'm using it on Windows 7 x64, by the way.

ewemoa · « **Reply #146 on:** November 21, 2011, 01:30 PM »

I got a chance to try out Windows 7 Professional (64 bit) for a bit, so am giving FARR Windows Search a try.

Unzipped 0.3.0 into the FARRWindowsSearch plugin folder and restarted FARR. ws in FARR's main window brings up Options and About as search results. I haven't had any luck getting any other search results to show up though...Is there some other configuration necessary to get the plugin to work?

Not sure if this is relevant, but typing the Windows key and typing in cmd gives one result of cmd.exe, but in FARR ws cmd gives nothing.

Armando · « **Reply #147 on:** November 21, 2011, 05:53 PM »

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.

ewemoa · « **Reply #148 on:** November 21, 2011, 10:02 PM »

Quote from: Armando on November 21, 2011, 05:53 PM

Normally you need to add a space after ws before typing ?

Not sure I follow you here -- in my tests apart from just "ws", I appended a single space after "ws" and before any other text. Does that sound ok? I don't suppose there is a suggestion here to type a question mark character...I tried that too but that doesn't appear to cause any difference in behavior.

Quote

Did you try changing the default alias ? I changed it to ^ws (.*), so actual search starts when I insert a space after "ws"

Gave this suggestion a try but didn't notice any difference in behavior.

Thanks for the ideas

Armando · « **Reply #149 on:** November 21, 2011, 10:44 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.