What Do / Would You Use It For ?

i.e. Everything or Agent Ransack

What tasks do you do using these apps ?

If I was to code up something similar, what features would you like ?

On Mon, 10 Apr 2017 00:36:06 -0700, AIOEUser
wrote:

i.e. Everything or Agent Ransack

What tasks do you do using these apps ?

If I was to code up something similar, what features would you like ?

I'm a data packrat. If I've ever created, edited, downloaded or was
given a file, I probably still have a copy of it lurking around on the
hard-drive somewhere. Even though I have everything meticulously
organized into directories and sub-directories, it can be time
consuming to navigate the file system looking for a specific file, so
I use search apps to speed things up

Everything is nice, but I hate its interface; it's too simplistic. I
/like/ the old Win2k-style search menu dialogue box. So that would be
one important feature (Agent Ransack is better but a bit /too/
cluttered; also, I think there was another reason I didn't use it;
maybe it doesn't index? I forget). It's why I stick with using
Locate32, even though it is (slightly) less functional; its interface
is just the right balance.

Having an index is important too, since a) it speeds up searches
dramatically (especially on network shares) and b) I can still get
search results if the network is temporarily offline (often I look to
see if I HAVE a file even I don't intend to open it).

Connected to the above, being able to index network shares. Not all
search apps allow this (including, stupidly, Microsoft search).

On-the-fly re-indexing is a nice option but obviously adds a good deal
of overhead. I personally just schedule my search app to re-index
twice a day (at lunchtime and at midnight) when I'm pretty sure I'm
not to going to be working anyway.

Deeper indexing would be nice too; being able to search by file
meta-data (e.g., all images of size 1920x1080, or PDF files with a
specific author). Searching by file content is useful too (for me in
particular, PDF, TXT, DOC and XLS). It'd be neat if this stuff could
be cached in the index too (although, again, this would significantly
add to the overhead)

On 4/10/2017 12:36 AM, AIOEUser wrote:
i.e. Everything or Agent Ransack

What tasks do you do using these apps ?

If I was to code up something similar, what features would you like ?


Everything: When I am searching for an object (i.e., file or folder).
It is fast enough for me, even when I want to sort by date.

Agent Ransack: When I am searching for a character string within
objects. It is much slower than Everything, but it is doing much more.

--
David E. Ross
http://www.rossde.com

Consider:
* Most state mandate that drivers have liability insurance.
* Employers are mandated to have worker's compensation insurance.
* If you live in a flood zone, flood insurance is mandatory.
* If your home has a mortgage, fire insurance is mandatory.

Why then is mandatory health insurance so bad??

AIOEUser wrote:
i.e. Everything or Agent Ransack

What tasks do you do using these apps ?

If I was to code up something similar, what features would you like ?

They are replacements for Windows Search.

Windows search is used to located files on disk via file name,
size, content. File names can be found by examining the $MFT.
File size via visiting directories and getting filesize info.
A content search can either be orchestrated by the brute
force reading of each file (Agent Ransack), or by reading
the files and storing an inverted index for later on the
hard drive. The inverted index is around a 1GB file on a decent
sized disk setup, and contains references to all the "words"
in the documents present on the disk drive. To Index a file,
your program needs to "know" each file type, whether recognizable
text is present, then, how to read the file in an intelligent
way.

Everything.exe is pretty good on speed (as it reads the $MFT directly).
But Everything.exe doesn't do content searches. Agent Ransack
is a more conventional "brute force, no tricks" search tool,
which even supports regex (Regular Expression) search syntax.
Probably considered to be PCRE type regex, not the unbounded kind.

Windows Search, uses the Inverted Index to speed up search. There
should be no green bar or delay, for Windows Search to work.
As long as every partition is indexed, it's fast. When using
the Inverted Index, it doesn't even need to read the whole file.
It can do probes on the file, to find the references you require,
which is why it should be fast.

Yes, you can code up something. Have fun.

Paul

On 10 Apr 2017, AIOEUser wrote in
alt.windows7.general:

i.e. Everything or Agent Ransack

What tasks do you do using these apps ?

If I was to code up something similar, what features would you like ?

You can't seem to even use your computer very well. Are we to believe
you're able to just "code up somthing"?

Nil wrote:
On 10 Apr 2017, AIOEUser wrote in
alt.windows7.general:

i.e. Everything or Agent Ransack

What tasks do you do using these apps ?

If I was to code up something similar, what features would you like ?

You can't seem to even use your computer very well. Are we to believe
you're able to just "code up somthing"?

We're available to do code reviews here :-)

And if you have some Gravol and a toilet plunger handy, there's always this :-)

https://appstudio.windows.com/en-us

Paul

On 10 Apr 2017, Paul wrote in
alt.windows7.general:

Nil wrote:

You can't seem to even use your computer very well. Are we to
believe you're able to just "code up somthing"?

We're available to do code reviews here :-)

And if you have some Gravol and a toilet plunger handy, there's
always this :-)

https://appstudio.windows.com/en-us

It's the "Think System"! (see "The Music Man" for reference.) Thank God
we no longer have to worry about such annoyances as planning, skill,
experience, efficiency, etc.

In message , AIOEUser
writes:
i.e. Everything or Agent Ransack

What tasks do you do using these apps ?

If I was to code up something similar, what features would you like ?

I use Everything mainly for when downloading, for "have I already got
this". (The implied leading and trailing wildcards are useful.)

Virtually all the other suggestions, though nice, require reading the
files, or at least part thereof (including MP3 and picture file
information).

I have Ransack, but can't remember ever having actually used it; I tend
to forget I've got it.

The only thing I can think of that I'd like Everything to do that
_wouldn't_ slow it down enough to make it useless, would be to not
select the whole search window so often. It's probably standard Windows
convention, but too often I've found the whole search window - e. g.

"D:\movies\animals" cat

highlighted, so as soon as I start to type "dog", the whole thing is
replaced, including the bit in quotes (that's usually there because I
launched Everything by right-clicking on a folder). Of course,
Everything is fast enough that that doesn't matter for search speed, but
it increases the search target size too much. [I'm not interested in "if
you ... that wouldn't happen" type advice: usually, I don't spot that
the whole search string is highlighted until a split second _after_ I've
typed the first character that replaces it all.]
--
J. P. Gilliver. UMRA: 1960/1985 MB++G()AL-IS-Ch++(p)Ar@T+H+Sh0!:`)DNAf

And Jonathan Harker would never have sent all those letters to his beloved
Mina from Transylvania, he'd have texted her instead. "Stuck in weird castle w
guy w big teeth. Missing u. xxxx (-:" - Alison Graham, RT 2015/11/7-13

On Mon, 10 Apr 2017 12:57:05 +0200, DAN wrote:

AIOEUser wrote:

i.e. Everything or Agent Ransack
What tasks do you do using these apps ?
If I was to code up something similar, what features would you like ?

I use Everything. I deleted Ransack.

- I would like a toolbar, with buttons for previous/last and favorite searches
(like a browser)

- the possibility to keep database for removable volumes when they are offline.
we should be able to include them or not in a given search.

- more options for the fields. (Date Taken for photos is obvious...)
generally, include EXIF and IPTC fields as options. + ID3 (mp3)

You have pretty much described IndexYourFiles.
+ Creates indexes -which can be updated on a schedule that you design-
saves offline searches also indexes as you desire - create an index of
only a folder or a disc
+saves the last search you did in a pull down -mine has about a
hundred saved- -deleteable-
+search by wild cards
+search filename or content (not the fastest) or date(range) or size
+allows some file manipulation -move or deletes
+search all or selected indexes eg only search drive C and Folder
Downloads etc

I use it to prevent redownloading files... fairly quick depending on
size of indexes (I have about 15T and it only takes moments.. usually
the delay is NAS drive spinning up.

x not as granular as EXIF exclusions though..

Beamer Smith
Out on a limb Sawing Madly