Author Topic: What is the currently best Desktop Search software? (Read 1,110,399 times)

rjbull · « **Reply #625 on:** March 10, 2009, 03:41 PM »

Quote from: Steven Avery on March 10, 2009, 03:03 PM

File Managers

Perhaps a few of those are fast and strong, I mentioned Total Commander is slow, Xyplorer might be fast. One of the reasons for this summary was that for most of us the file managers will be chosen on other criteria. However if a few are truly top-notch on "find files" it would be worth a note. Personally I would be more likely to switch to that file manager.

Total Commander is an excellent file manager and my most-used one, but it's true I prefer XYPlorer (registered) for unindexed file searching on the company network. XY has a nice free version too. But don't forget that you can have (more or less) the best of both worlds with TC by using the FSE plug-in, which integrates Locate32 into TC.

saintsatinstain · « **Reply #626 on:** March 25, 2009, 02:37 AM »

Exalead Desktop free?

nudone · « **Reply #627 on:** April 18, 2009, 09:57 AM »

Quote from: Carol Haynes on March 10, 2009, 09:18 AM

I have now removed locate and use Everything almost exclusively.

The only problem I have with "Everything" is that it doesn't seem to be able to cope with removing external drives.

i'm been using Everything for a few weeks - i never really got on with any other of the search programs.

what's the problem with the external drives? are you wanting the drives indexed when they are connected or just not indexed at all?

widgewunner · « **Reply #628 on:** April 18, 2009, 03:36 PM »

PowerGrep - For those of us who depend upon the power of regular expressions to "express" ourselves, nothing else (that I am aware of) even comes close. Yes, its expensive - and worth every penny.

That said, what the hell is "Desktop Search Software" anyway? Did you lose something?

Darwin · « **Reply #629 on:** April 18, 2009, 08:27 PM »

Quote from: widgewunner on April 18, 2009, 03:36 PM

That said, what the hell is "Desktop Search Software" anyway? Did you lose something?

The icon for the recycle bin

Curt · « **Reply #630 on:** May 07, 2009, 12:24 PM »

Quote from: Bits du Jour

Halftone Search

Halftone Search is all-in-one tool extending Google Desktop and Windows Desktop Search. It includes set of additional drivers for indexing files and shell for search files using GDS. The solid GUI shell also can be used to query Windows Desktop Search with advanced features.

Listed price: $29
Today only: $16

http://www.bitsdujour.com/software/halftone-search/
http://www.trietech.com/gdstools.php

Quote

... you use Google Desktop Search or Windows Desktop Search to index your files. These programs are useful, sure, but Halftone Search makes them even better.

Halftone Search is an extension to Google Desktop Search and Windows Desktop Search that resolves the shortfalls that are inherent in each of these programs. With Halftone Search, you’ll have access to plug-ins that enable you to search archive files (RAR, ZIP, TAR, and others), text files, web archives, MSDN files, help files, and many other file formats that, until now, couldn’t be handled by GDS and WDS alone.

In addition to all of this desktop search power, Halftone Search also provides you with a lightweight search shell interface, intuitively designed, that makes finding files a walk in the park! Easily locate files by type, date created or modified, and many more factors, with an instant preview of the file right in the Halftone Search window. You can even run Halftone Search queries right from the system tray icon!

kartal · « **Reply #631 on:** May 12, 2009, 07:56 AM »

What is the lightest (respecting cpucycles and resources) and best desktop document search out there? I am also looking for one with command line switches.

tranglos · « **Reply #632 on:** May 12, 2009, 10:41 AM »

Quote from: kartal on May 12, 2009, 07:56 AM

What is the lightest (respecting cpucycles and resources) and best desktop document search out there? I am also looking for one with command line switches.

Of the indexing engines, Archivarius seems fairly light in terms of cpu and memory usage. (Only 1.6 MB working set when idle and minimized according to Process Explorer; about 16 MB when running restored). It's also very fast to load and responsive. The help says anothing about command-line switches though.

A for "the best", I think Archivarius supports the greatest variety of file formats. I chose it because it indexes TheBat! and Forte Agent data. It's not the prettiest, but is perfectly functional to me, and the author seems open to suggestions.

kartal · « **Reply #633 on:** May 12, 2009, 05:30 PM »

Well when coding it is always helpful to invoke Farr and search through farr rather than open another interface. I am hoping that I can find one app that supports command line

kartal · « **Reply #634 on:** May 12, 2009, 06:50 PM »

Btw does Archivarius support
-thunderbird and outlook express contacts?
-custom file formats like .py or other codes?

tranglos · « **Reply #635 on:** May 12, 2009, 07:14 PM »

Quote from: kartal on May 12, 2009, 06:50 PM

Btw does Archivarius support
-thunderbird and outlook express contacts?
-custom file formats like .py or other codes?

Check out the complete list of supported formats:
http://www.likasoft.com/document-search/features.shtml

Contacts aren't mentioned specifically, but I'd be surprised if it didn't support those. It does support all popular maibox formats, and does list Outlook .pst files - without excepting any part of them. Each new release adds new formats, though at this point it covers all the popular ones, so the new additions sound pretty esoteric to me; usually formats I've never even heard of.

Custom formats, definitely - anything that's text, regardless of file extension.

tranglos · « **Reply #636 on:** May 12, 2009, 07:17 PM »

...and the ability to index various mailbox formats is really useful. I have a large collection of downloaded Delphi docs on disk, which any search program would index. But I also have years of Borland newsgroups archived in Agent, and various mailing list archives in TheBat. Using Archivarius I can search them all in one go, without trying to figure out whether the answer I'm looking for is most likely to sit in a disk file or in one of the newsgroup or email archives.

kartal · « **Reply #637 on:** May 12, 2009, 07:30 PM »

Quote from: tranglos on May 12, 2009, 07:14 PM

Custom formats, definitely - anything that's text, regardless of file extension.

Hmm., I was playing with it and I actually do not see a way to add custom formats

tranglos · « **Reply #638 on:** May 12, 2009, 08:15 PM »

Quote from: kartal on May 12, 2009, 07:30 PM

Hmm., I was playing with it and I actually do not see a way to add custom formats

It's somewhat obscure. Archivarius could do with a bit of overhaul in the usability department, but it's simple once you know where to look

Start creating a new index and follow the wizard to the "Select documents for indexing" page. This is where you pick known file formats. Uncheck the "Inherit settings" at bottom to enable the list. Select "plain text" here, and add anything else you need. Click Next and arrive at "Select file name masks". Again, uncheck the "Inherit settings". There are several lists of extensions here, some very long, in desperate need of filters or incremenetal search, but *.py is not in any of them. So just check "Custom extensions", expand it, and you'll see "Add extension (double click)". Take it from there.

Or, to make things quicker in the long run, in the main window click More -> Settings -> File extensions, and add anything you need. That way you won't have to uncheck the "Inherit settings" whenever defining a new index.

kartal · « **Reply #639 on:** May 12, 2009, 08:27 PM »

tranglos

I did exactly what you said and it is not indexing *.py files at all. I am not sure if it is a limitation with trial version or not

tranglos · « **Reply #640 on:** May 12, 2009, 08:38 PM »

Quote from: kartal on May 12, 2009, 08:27 PM

I did exactly what you said and it is not indexing *.py files at all. I am not sure if it is a limitation with trial version or not

Okay, that's strange. It's a well-known extension and should be included in the presets anyway. My suggestion would be to ask the author - the contact page is at http://www.likasoft.com/contacts.shtml

(Meanwhile, I'll check for *.py on my own system.)

tranglos · « **Reply #641 on:** May 12, 2009, 08:57 PM »

Quote from: tranglos on May 12, 2009, 08:38 PM

(Meanwhile, I'll check for *.py on my own system.)

Seems to work fine for me. I created an index of a library of *.py files from ActiveState Komodo Edit distribution. Archivarious appears to have indexed them and finds text in them correctly.

Do email the author, or possibly check other settings of your index (double-click an existing index). Perhaps you have an option set (size, compression, language, etc.) that unintentionally excluded those files.

qforce · « **Reply #642 on:** May 12, 2009, 11:32 PM »

DocFetcher 1.0 released. Comments are very welcome.

New features:
- MS Office 2007 support
- Daemon with low cpu usage that watches indexed folders, but runs independently of DocFetcher
- Creating temporary indexes by rightclicking on folders in the file manager
- Portable version can be moved around complete with documents and indexes (i.e. DocFetcher + indexes + documents). You can even burn it on a CD-ROM!

kartal · « **Reply #643 on:** May 13, 2009, 03:04 AM »

Quote from: tranglos on May 12, 2009, 08:38 PM

Quote from: kartal on May 12, 2009, 08:27 PM
I did exactly what you said and it is not indexing *.py files at all. I am not sure if it is a limitation with trial version or not
Okay, that's strange. It's a well-known extension and should be included in the presets anyway. My suggestion would be to ask the author - the contact page is at http://www.likasoft.com/contacts.shtml
(Meanwhile, I'll check for *.py on my own system.)

Hi, thanks for testing it. Your test encouraged me to try one more time. I think that in custom template section I was choosing the wrong one(search except thing). Ok it is looking good however its hits were less than my Eclipse internal search. Eclipse hit the 81 for the same word, Archivarius hit only 21. What do you think about its searching features. I am hoping to find a tool that I can use like the way you are using, mainly an aid to my programming stuff.

Grorgy · « **Reply #644 on:** May 13, 2009, 04:11 AM »

The trial is limited to only 10,000 files, so that may have something to do with it, if you perhaps have more of these files in other directories or whatever, just a thought, I know it took me a little time going through all the options to get it right.

tranglos · « **Reply #645 on:** May 13, 2009, 12:23 PM »

Quote from: kartal on May 13, 2009, 03:04 AM

Ok it is looking good however its hits were less than my Eclipse internal search. Eclipse hit the 81 for the same word, Archivarius hit only 21. What do you think about its searching features.

I haven't found a reason to complain, but then again, it's hard to be sure you got all the hits that there are. The differences you're seeing can of course be casued by different option settings (whole words vs substring, etc.), but you probably checked for that.

The two times I tried Google Desktop Search, OTOH, it was blindingly obvious that its indexing was way off the mark. For some terms it would find no hits at all. It refused to index certain files, even though I specifically included them (or tried to; their configuration was always a little simplistic). Archivarius seems to find whatever I'm looking for, but whether is finding all the matches, I haven't checked.

kartal · « **Reply #646 on:** May 14, 2009, 05:47 AM »

If someone can give me some suggestions regarding increasing Archivarius hits in text like files that would be great. I just do not have alot of time at the moment.

kartal · « **Reply #647 on:** May 16, 2009, 03:03 AM »

Quote from: tranglos on May 12, 2009, 08:57 PM

Quote from: tranglos on May 12, 2009, 08:38 PM
(Meanwhile, I'll check for *.py on my own system.)

Seems to work fine for me. I created an index of a library of *.py files from ActiveState Komodo Edit distribution. Archivarious appears to have indexed them and finds text in them correctly.

Do email the author, or possibly check other settings of your index (double-click an existing index). Perhaps you have an option set (size, compression, language, etc.) that unintentionally excluded those files.

I think I like this application. It even has a server which is cool. I have one main question actually. Is it developed actively? I mean do you get couple updates a year at least?

Darwin · « **Reply #648 on:** May 16, 2009, 05:07 AM »

You get - I would estimate - at least 4 (and probably more) updates a year. With Archivarius, that is...

Grorgy · « **Reply #649 on:** May 16, 2009, 06:19 AM »

During 2008 there were 19 updates, this year their have been 4 so far. The updates aren't major, usually 1 or 2 more file types that are supported, and 'minor changes' whatever they may be