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Evaluating Foxtrot Personal Search [message #401] Sat, 18 June 2016 10:12 Go to next message
jonathanalix via foxt
Messages: 51
Registered: May 2019
Member
Hi,

I appear to be on a never ending quest to find a decent search system for
my Mac. As I discover new apps, I'll try them out to discover they are
based on Spotlight or some such nonsense. Spotlight needs taking out into a
deep ocean, have a large concrete block tied to it and slipped over the
side never to be seen again .

Anyway, back to the real world, have downloaded Foxtrot Personal Search and
am kicking the tyres.

What I *mainly* want a search engine to do is

1) Search on filenames, using regular expressions. I am very happy to do
complex regexp on filenames. The reason for this is maintenance of a lot of
old code on our Macs and wanting to find files and THEN dig into them. 95%
of my searches (if not more) are filename based. We have gazillions of
files and we want a quick and easy way to get access to them. Foxtrot
seems to do this OK.

2) We want to have a quick way to access the search. - Double hit control
key is fine - so OK

3) We want the quick search default to filename searching. We don't want to
have to change the type of search to filename searching which is what it
appears we have to do now.

4) It needs to be quick, we know we can search directly the whole disk
using find or FindFile or EasyFind or whatever. We would like a indexed
search thats fast and simple and autoindexes.

So far we can do regexp filename searching and have a quick access method,
what we can't seem to do is to gave the default of filename searching. This
means we get more files back than we should.

Is this possible or does our never ending search go on :0

Thanks

Rob
Re: Evaluating Foxtrot Personal Search [message #402 is a reply to message #401] Sat, 18 June 2016 12:56 Go to previous messageGo to next message
CTM Development
Messages: 57
Registered: April 2014
Member
Sir,

We hope to offer more than a comfort stop on your never-ending quest.

If your focus is on filename searches, I suggest you change your FoxTrot Personal settings to not indexing contents: this is real easy to do if you just are indexing your main volume: use the preset “filenames only”. If you have other volumes, click all the predefined locations off, drag the volumes you wish into Custom folder, and when you have each of these selected, uncheck all the boxes under “index contents of files”. If you need a visual representation of this, download the attached link below.

This way, the index you will have created only contains filenames, no find by content.

If you want to have the best of both worlds, ie filename search only using the FoxTrot System menu and content find from within the application, you can do this in FoxTrot Professional Search by having several indices. Configure the first one (Main index) as above, and create a search window with only that one selected (possibly setting it to “filenames only” as well. Quit the application and relaunch. The setup which you have left should be restored as your new default.

Then you can also have other indices, but make sure you disable them after use so that your system menu only searches your main index.

Finally, if you haven’t discovered this yet, the syntax for advanced searches can be found at:

http://help.foxtrot.ch/foxtrot-professional-search/searching /advanced_search/index.html

Best regards,

jean michel/ctm qa




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> On Jun 18, 2016, at 10:12 AM, 'Rob Willett' via foxtrot-search wrote:
>
> Hi,
>
> I appear to be on a never ending quest to find a decent search system for my Mac. As I discover new apps, I'll try them out to discover they are based on Spotlight or some such nonsense. Spotlight needs taking out into a deep ocean, have a large concrete block tied to it and slipped over the side never to be seen again .
>
> Anyway, back to the real world, have downloaded Foxtrot Personal Search and am kicking the tyres.
>
> What I *mainly* want a search engine to do is
>
> 1) Search on filenames, using regular expressions. I am very happy to do complex regexp on filenames. The reason for this is maintenance of a lot of old code on our Macs and wanting to find files and THEN dig into them. 95% of my searches (if not more) are filename based. We have gazillions of files and we want a quick and easy way to get access to them. Foxtrot seems to do this OK.
>
> 2) We want to have a quick way to access the search. - Double hit control key is fine - so OK
>
> 3) We want the quick search default to filename searching. We don't want to have to change the type of search to filename searching which is what it appears we have to do now.
>
> 4) It needs to be quick, we know we can search directly the whole disk using find or FindFile or EasyFind or whatever. We would like a indexed search thats fast and simple and autoindexes.
>
> So far we can do regexp filename searching and have a quick access method, what we can't seem to do is to gave the default of filename searching. This means we get more files back than we should.
>
> Is this possible or does our never ending search go on :0
>
> Thanks
>
> Rob
>
> --
>
> ---
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> To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to foxtrot-search+unsubscribe«~at~»googlegroups«|dot|»com .
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--

---
Re: Evaluating Foxtrot Personal Search [message #403 is a reply to message #401] Mon, 20 June 2016 09:48 Go to previous messageGo to next message
FoxTrot Engineering
Messages: 406
Registered: April 2020
Senior Member
'Rob Willett' via foxtrot-search wrote:

> So far we can do regexp filename searching and have a quick access method,
> what we can't seem to do is to gave the default of filename searching. This
> means we get more files back than we should.

FoxTrot Personal does not support regular expressions. FoxTrot Professional does, but only as a secondary criterion, for performance reasons.

FoxTrot Pro also lets you define some search templates, and choose which template to use when searching from the system menu or keyboard shortcut. However, if your template has multiple criteria (which is necessary if you use regular expressions), then the string you type in the system menu will only apply to the first criterion. So no, you can't search for regular expressions directly from FoxTrot Pro's system menu or keyboard shortcut.


Jérôme - CTM Engineering


------------------------------------------------------------ ---------
"Well worth its shareware fee for the serious Mac e-mail user! One
of the few Mac products that is really suitable for a professional
business environment. An excellent valuse for the professional user
who owns a Mac! Superior to Mail.app!"
PowerMail user comment on www.macupdate.com


Download a demo version from www.ctmdev.com
------------------------------------------------------------ ---------


> Hi,
>
> I appear to be on a never ending quest to find a decent search system for
> my Mac. As I discover new apps, I'll try them out to discover they are
> based on Spotlight or some such nonsense. Spotlight needs taking out into a
> deep ocean, have a large concrete block tied to it and slipped over the
> side never to be seen again .
>
> Anyway, back to the real world, have downloaded Foxtrot Personal Search and
> am kicking the tyres.
>
> What I *mainly* want a search engine to do is
>
> 1) Search on filenames, using regular expressions. I am very happy to do
> complex regexp on filenames. The reason for this is maintenance of a lot of
> old code on our Macs and wanting to find files and THEN dig into them. 95%
> of my searches (if not more) are filename based. We have gazillions of
> files and we want a quick and easy way to get access to them. Foxtrot
> seems to do this OK.
>
> 2) We want to have a quick way to access the search. - Double hit control
> key is fine - so OK
>
> 3) We want the quick search default to filename searching. We don't want to
> have to change the type of search to filename searching which is what it
> appears we have to do now.
>
> 4) It needs to be quick, we know we can search directly the whole disk
> using find or FindFile or EasyFind or whatever. We would like a indexed
> search thats fast and simple and autoindexes.
>
> So far we can do regexp filename searching and have a quick access method,
> what we can't seem to do is to gave the default of filename searching. This
> means we get more files back than we should.
>
> Is this possible or does our never ending search go on :0
>
> Thanks
>
> Rob
>
>


Jérôme - FoxTrot Engineering
Re: Evaluating Foxtrot Personal Search [message #404 is a reply to message #403] Mon, 20 June 2016 13:21 Go to previous messageGo to next message
jonathanalix via foxt
Messages: 51
Registered: May 2019
Member
Thanks for this.

We'll experiment.

Rob

On Mon, Jun 20, 2016 at 8:48 AM, FoxTrot Engineering wrote:[/color]

> 'Rob Willett' via foxtrot-search wrote:
>
>> So far we can do regexp filename searching and have a quick access method,
>> what we can't seem to do is to gave the default of filename searching.
> This
>> means we get more files back than we should.
>
> FoxTrot Personal does not support regular expressions. FoxTrot
> Professional does, but only as a secondary criterion, for performance
> reasons.
>
> FoxTrot Pro also lets you define some search templates, and choose which
> template to use when searching from the system menu or keyboard shortcut.
> However, if your template has multiple criteria (which is necessary if you
> use regular expressions), then the string you type in the system menu will
> only apply to the first criterion. So no, you can't search for regular
> expressions directly from FoxTrot Pro's system menu or keyboard shortcut.
>
>
> Jérôme - CTM Engineering
>
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------ ---------
> "Well worth its shareware fee for the serious Mac e-mail user! One
> of the few Mac products that is really suitable for a professional
> business environment. An excellent valuse for the professional user
> who owns a Mac! Superior to Mail.app!"
> PowerMail user comment on www.macupdate.com
>
>
> Download a demo version from www.ctmdev.com
> ------------------------------------------------------------ ---------
>
>
>> Hi,
>>
>> I appear to be on a never ending quest to find a decent search system for
>> my Mac. As I discover new apps, I'll try them out to discover they are
>> based on Spotlight or some such nonsense. Spotlight needs taking out into
> a
>> deep ocean, have a large concrete block tied to it and slipped over the
>> side never to be seen again .
>>
>> Anyway, back to the real world, have downloaded Foxtrot Personal Search
> and
>> am kicking the tyres.
>>
>> What I *mainly* want a search engine to do is
>>
>> 1) Search on filenames, using regular expressions. I am very happy to do
>> complex regexp on filenames. The reason for this is maintenance of a lot
> of
>> old code on our Macs and wanting to find files and THEN dig into them. 95%
>> of my searches (if not more) are filename based. We have gazillions of
>> files and we want a quick and easy way to get access to them. Foxtrot
>> seems to do this OK.
>>
>> 2) We want to have a quick way to access the search. - Double hit control
>> key is fine - so OK
>>
>> 3) We want the quick search default to filename searching. We don't want
> to
>> have to change the type of search to filename searching which is what it
>> appears we have to do now.
>>
>> 4) It needs to be quick, we know we can search directly the whole disk
>> using find or FindFile or EasyFind or whatever. We would like a indexed
>> search thats fast and simple and autoindexes.
>>
>> So far we can do regexp filename searching and have a quick access method,
>> what we can't seem to do is to gave the default of filename searching.
> This
>> means we get more files back than we should.
>>
>> Is this possible or does our never ending search go on :0
>>
>> Thanks
>>
>> Rob
>>
>> --
>>
>> ---
>
>
> --
>
> ---
>
Re: Evaluating Foxtrot Personal Search [message #405 is a reply to message #403] Mon, 20 June 2016 15:11 Go to previous message
FoxTrot Engineering
Messages: 406
Registered: April 2020
Senior Member
I wrote:

> So no, you can't
> search for regular expressions directly from FoxTrot Pro's system menu
> or keyboard shortcut.

In fact, that is not completely exact. You can search for a regular expression from FoxTrot Pro's system menu, but only if you use the "Matches the FoxTrot query" operator, and type a FoxTrot query that specifies both a regular expression and some other words.
For example, the following FoxTrot query, when applied to the filename only, will find documents whose name contain the word "html", and whose name ends with ".html", and whose name contains a 4-digit number starting with "20"

html `\.html$` `\b20\d\d\b`

For this to work from the system menu, first perform a search with "filename only" and "matches the FoxTrot query", then create a search template from this search, and make sure to set this template as the default one (FoxTrot icon). If you don't create a template, then searches from the system menu will be performed using the same criteria as the last search you ran.


Jérôme - CTM Engineering


------------------------------------------------------------ ---------
"First, PowerMail downloads mail in about half the time of Entourage.
Second, it's rock solid. Hasn't crashed once (Entourage crashed
regularly). Third, searches are lightening fast, very impressive
facility. Fourth, it has a very nice filtering capability, at least
as strong as Entourage and probably stronger (my rules sets are fairly
straightforward). Fifth, it auto syncs with AddressBook without the
need for external scripts like in Entourage."
PowerMail user comment on www.versiontracker.com


Download a demo version from www.ctmdev.com
------------------------------------------------------------ ---------


Jérôme - FoxTrot Engineering
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