| Exclude subfolders from index by folder name [message #1683] |
Sun, 13 August 2023 15:05  |
es
Messages: 9
Registered: July 2023
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Junior Member |
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If I include some folder as a separate index, I see the option to skip specific individual subfolders.
But I'd like to exclude all subfolders matching some glob/regex, e.g., exclude all subfolders named "cache"
Is it possible?
Thank you
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| Re: Exclude subfolders from index by folder name [message #1688 is a reply to message #1687] |
Wed, 23 August 2023 16:48  |
FoxTrot Engineering
Messages: 384
Registered: April 2020
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Senior Member |
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Another option is to add an empty file named ".noindex" in each of the folders yo want to skip at indexing time. As the Finder hides files whose name begin with a dot, you need to show invisible files (command-shift-.) in order to create (or rename or delete) such a file from the Finder.
Jérôme - FoxTrot Engineering
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| Re: Exclude subfolders from index by folder name [message #1689 is a reply to message #1688] |
Wed, 23 August 2023 19:36 |
es
Messages: 9
Registered: July 2023
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Junior Member |
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Thanks for the tip, but unfortunately many of such folders are dynamic, created by other tools, so chasing them with manual noindex files is also not pretty; then some could be inside version controlled folders, so you'd need to exclude .noindex files from being visible, another complication...
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| Re: Exclude subfolders from index by folder name [message #1690 is a reply to message #1689] |
Thu, 24 August 2023 09:13 |
FoxTrot Engineering
Messages: 384
Registered: April 2020
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Senior Member |
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We will consider adding a hidden preference (accessible via Terminal.app) for this in the future. This will probably be a global (i.e. not per-index) setting, with a regular expression.
For example, if you want to skip all folders named "cache" or "meta", the command line to set this hidden preference would be something like:
defaults write com.ctmdev.FoxTrotShared SkipFoldersRegex '/(cache|meta)$'
defaults write com.ctmdev.FoxTrotShared SkipFoldersRegex '\.repo/(.*/)?(cache|meta)$'
Jérôme - FoxTrot Engineering
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| Re: Exclude subfolders from index by folder name [message #1691 is a reply to message #1690] |
Thu, 24 August 2023 11:12 |
es
Messages: 9
Registered: July 2023
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Junior Member |
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Hidden terminal preference is a poor UI. Now whenever I find some garbage in the search results that I can generalize to some exclude rule instead of adding a new filter to the Blacklist I'd have to remember the cli incantation and also remember the old regex to add to it, and that regex will get rather unwieldy
And it's also not just a folder regex, but also files
And it should be per index since the exclusion rules aren't global by nature, e.g., I'd like to exclude various build artifacts everywhere except for my Source Code regex, where it's fine to have them included as they might contain useful information
Thank you
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| Re: Exclude subfolders from index by folder name [message #1692 is a reply to message #1691] |
Fri, 25 August 2023 18:05 |
FoxTrot Engineering
Messages: 384
Registered: April 2020
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Senior Member |
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This hidden preference will be implemented in FoxTrot Pro version 8 (the beta version will be announced soon). We won't surcharge the user interface with this.
You can use Prefs Editor to change these hidden preferences without using Terminal.app.
This setting will apply both for folders and files, and you can add multiple regular expressions if you have different patterns to skip.
The setting is ignored for folders that you directly add to the indexed locations; i.e. if you skip all folders named "cache", but explicitly add a specific "cache" folder to the indexed location, this one will be indexed.
A few examples:
To skip any folder whose name is exactly "cache" or "meta" (case sensitive), use one of these commands:
defaults write com.ctmdev.FoxTrotShared SkipPathRegex -string '/(cache|meta)$' defaults write com.ctmdev.FoxTrotShared SkipPathRegex -array -string '/cache$' -string '/meta$'
defaults write com.ctmdev.FoxTrotShared SkipPathRegex -string '\.repo/(.*/)?(cache|meta)$' defaults write com.ctmdev.FoxTrotShared SkipPathRegex -array -string '\.repo/(.*/)?cache$' -string '\.repo/(.*/)?meta$'
Jérôme - FoxTrot Engineering
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| Re: Exclude subfolders from index by folder name [message #1693 is a reply to message #1692] |
Sat, 26 August 2023 08:04 |
es
Messages: 9
Registered: July 2023
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Junior Member |
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FoxTrot Engineering wrote on Fri, 25 August 2023 18:05This setting will apply both for folders and files
But these are very different, can you add a flag to separate those two? I mean, if you're doing it in such an inconvenient registry/terminal way, at least would be nice if it were powerful!
Also, what regex engine are you using so I could test the rules before adding them?
Thanks
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| Re: Exclude subfolders from index by folder name [message #1694 is a reply to message #1693] |
Sat, 26 August 2023 10:52 |
FoxTrot Engineering
Messages: 384
Registered: April 2020
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Senior Member |
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Could you give some use cases where using a pattern to skip some files is necessary, but would also match some folders that should not be skipped (or vice versa)? You can easily write a regex that only targets folders, or more accurately, the contents of these folders (like /cache/ ); however targeting files but not folders having the same name is probably not possible.
We are using PCRE2 for our regular expression engine.
Jérôme - FoxTrot Engineering
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| Re: Exclude subfolders from index by folder name [message #1695 is a reply to message #1694] |
Sat, 26 August 2023 13:59 |
es
Messages: 9
Registered: July 2023
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Junior Member |
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One example would be to differentiate between autogenerated folders like "build" but preserve manually created quick scratch files (thus without extension). But then if /build/ is enough to exclude the folder it should be fine
Not sure about a good opposite example, just didn't want to worry that I'd exclude something useful (maybe a test that the last symbol is NOT / would also be enough?)
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