Anyone else feel this way about file search?

[BC_Programmer]

As useful as the Search companion and search tools are in XP and Vista, is anybody else like me and sometimes want to use the good old File Search tool provided with windows 98?:



there is something just utilitarian about it that I like- and you don't necessarily have to click through a million balloons to find the right options, AND the search won't start over if you change files on the disk.


Anyway- I've decided to rebuild this tool (again, actually, I had a complete exact replica completely compatible with XP/Vista that looked and functioned almost exactly the same, but FASTER then the 98 version, and didn't have the limit on the number of files it could find.) and wanted to know if I would be the only person who used it, or wether I should bother to create an installer for the little fellow.

[evilfantasy]

Agreed. Fashes whistles and farts sell a product. But it doesn't mean they make it better.

[patio]

I'll use it in a heartbeat...

How 'bout revising the Vista ( "jump thru 7 hoops to get to basic Explorer settings"  ) while you're at it ? ?

[xcharge50]

I will use it! But I think just all the file with a read me in a zip (RAR or else...)is enough

[BC_Programmer]

I will use it! But I think just all the file with a read me in a zip (RAR or else...)is enough

well, I would like to do it that way, But right now I'm just getting my "BCFile" File Object library to the point where I can use it for this type of project, (COM DLL) which will need to be registered, as with a few VBAccelerator Controls (for the Listview and so forth)

BUT- I could simply include a batch file with the appropriate regsvr32 commands. and simply specify that that should be run before the program is. On the other hand it would be nice to have an uninstaller.

Just finishing up the Search Classes that this would use. I remember my main hurdle with my previous attempts was that blasted Right-Click menu shown when you right click a file. I won't tell the horror story that is showing that in VB6... needless to say Pidls aren't fun to deal with in a Pointer-enabled language like C++. VB6 only makes things worse.

And once I finished that, I upgraded to XP... and none of the icons had alpha...

I lost the old version ages ago along with several other projects, but it might be hiding somewhere on my old CD-Rs. I've searched them a few times for old stuff and have come up with a few old treasures here and there, but annoyingly enough only projects I had already completely rewritten and improved ten-fold.


"obvious" improvements I should make likely include regular expression file specification matching as well as regular expressions for the containing text- but those are "trivial" to add compared to what I've already done re: the file search APIs.

I'll use it in a heartbeat...

How 'bout revising the Vista ( "jump thru 7 hoops to get to basic Explorer settings"  ) while you're at it ? ?

I only count three hoops.

press alt.
press t.
press o.

folder options.

Or is that not it?

[BC_Programmer]

OK... I cracked my own whip here, and finally created the "Search" Project for this. So far, this is what it looks like:





the only code I've written so far is the code to create the tabs, switch between the controls on each tab, and create the statusbar text.

The "Look In" combo only lists Drives right now- but I did have a control that would show the namespace stuff that the win98 Find dialog does.

Include Subfolders and Browse controls are missing too, and I haven't added the menus yet (toying with the idea of using  VB accelerator Commandbar for that one, all the more appealing since I have already written a large module specifically to transform a XML document into a menu... but that is yet another reference to MSXML... grrr.

So far so good, all the search code is near completion, so soon it will be a matter of simply putting it to work, and trying to duplicate the positive nuances of the Win98 Search.

[patio]

I only count three hoops.

press alt.
press t.
press o.

folder options.

Or is that not it?

No.
I was speaking of getting to an Explorer window itself...
Not folder options once in.

[BC_Programmer]

Ah, ok.

What about Windows key +E?

My new favourite shortcut.

[Dusty]

Anyone tried Locate32 from http://www.locate32.net/ ?  Opinion?

[Broni]

I have not touched Windows search for a long time. It simply sucks.
I use SuperFinder: http://freewarewiki.com/SuperFinder, which installs under Explorer right click.

[BC_Programmer]

blast you people, quit showing me the competition!

Although my FileSearch Class can already do everything those can do, it's merely making a bloody UI around it that pains me.

But the SuperFinder gave me another idea, Excluded masks. I did the same for attributes, since my "Directory" class needs to separate SubDirectories and Files, but it never occured to me to do the same for File masks. A useful feature with minimal effort.


Creating XP/Vista compatible UIs with VB6 is a huge pain but well worth the effort for no reason. 

[Broni]

Waiting for your final product

[BC_Programmer]

Some good progress has been made. Current Screenie:



Few obvious issues being that the Exclude mask doesn't work, since it's testing it against the full path- for the same reason that the "Filename" column is showing the directory as well, this should be a separate column.

Icons are working perfectly, including the Alpha Channel, no issues there, which I was thinking was my main problem.



I am not surprisingly getting Errors (which are ignored in the code, so the file simply doesn't display) when trying to get the info (GetFileInformationByHandle) of some OS protected files, Like pagefile.sys.

Also random Folders keep sneaking into the results even though I'm masking FILE_ATTRIBUTE_DIRECTORY, which is annoying to say the least.

The thing is if it matches the search the file should be included, especially for mask/excludemask searches, since they don't *really* need the info that my CFile class so cleverly tries to retrieve automatically.


Might revise the "size" field, but I really can't think of a better method, right now it counts the number of times the total number of bytes must be divided by 1024 for it to go below 1024, and then uses that number as an index into a String array ( {"Bytes","KB","MB","GB"} for now), and tacks on the actual byte count in brackets.


And some UI changes that I'll make soon involving resizing, which works fairly well, but the Boxes should expand in width along with the rest of it.


So... it's a work in progress.

[Broni]

Keep going

[BC_Programmer]

Thanks

say I noticed something in the above image...


the columnheaders from size onwards to the right are using the icon for a DLL/OCX...

I must examine this issue...

Also a thing that I really need to address would be the crash that occurs when trying to search more then once LOL

both of these related to that blasted ImageList...


Although the Right-click context menu is working seamlessly with this app, which is a bit of spoils from a long battle with PIDLs a few months back to get it to work. 


UI design angers me. I prefer the coding portion... It's a necessary evil though...


EDIT:

fixed the icon bug. Also works for searches after the initial search.

[Broni]

I assume, it'll search for hidden, and system files?

[BC_Programmer]

Right now it does, but that will become a set of checkboxes later on.

Right now my Extended Search class, "CFileSearchEx" which uses my main "FileSearch" and filters the results before giving them to the caller (in this case the search program) allows the selection of Attributes that files must have, and attributes files must not have.

right now the search program is telling it to exclude all Directories and include everything else- a few sets of checkboxes for that and it'll support the changing of those parameters is passes to the Search class.



And a quick little check when I add the item and the hidden files can appear ghosted as well.

Only problem is getting some of the info for some system files like pagefile.sys- I just ignore those errors for now.

I'm sure there is some way I can get the size and other info from the file without actually needing access rights to open it, Explorer is able to do this as well as most third party file managers,

[patio]

Although i love the idea of shareware i can chip in 8 Bucks towards the Project Development Fund.

[BC_Programmer]

Hmmm, I thought of a very interesting addition to use for the "Advanced" tab- move the stuff that is there on the win98 version to the first tab (some size stuff and type checks and so forth), and allow for the use of custom VBScript/Javascript functions to determine wether a file meets the criteria... quite a dandy idea, and quite easy to implement...

Although i love the idea of shareware i can chip in 8 Bucks towards the Project Development Fund.

Your just after the stock options 


I can see it now, BASeCamp corporation running Toe to toe with Microsoft, Our slogan?

"we're the ones who DIDN'T create BOB"


remember- you saw it here first. Just two employees, me and my cat, who isn't really mine anyway, and really is one of those disposable employees. But he's so darn fluffy I just can tell him he's not needed... Why he even offered my a dead bird yesterday. I was touched so much I puked, and the loving beast lunged at my vomit, all because he loves me so much... OH KITTY CAT OR KITTY CAT, I THINK I HAD ONE TOO MANY CONES TODAY.

response:

"hey, put me down, or I might have to do something, like- ahh, whats the word dam it, I put my claws against your skin and I kind of roughly rub them, ARGGH this is gonna drive me nuts!"

"Scratching"

"yeah, that's it, that's it.

[patio]

BaSC is already taken on the Stock Exchange...ideas ? ?

[Dias de verano]

I have not touched Windows search for a long time. It simply sucks.
I use SuperFinder: http://freewarewiki.com/SuperFinder, which installs under Explorer right click.

I had high hopes of Super Finder, because although I am reasonably content with Windows Search, I like playing with alternatives, but I don't use it much because you can't make multiple selections of found files.

[BC_Programmer]

I had high hopes of Super Finder, because although I am reasonably content with Windows Search, I like playing with alternatives, but I don't use it much because you can't make multiple selections of found files.

Hmm, so I've one-upped SuperFinder in that area since the beginning

Right now it only acts on the first selected item(IE, with the right-click menu)... I should get that fixed...

[BC_Programmer]

Arrgh....

OK I lied. Turns out that I only THOUGHT my right-click menu worked with multiple files.

I had only outlined what to do with multiple files in my comments...

Needless to say I had to jump back into the messy business of IShellFolder, PIDLs, and the great class coverup.

Good news is it appears to work now.

But I need to address a single issue- the context menu provided via the Shell functions only works with multiple files in the same directory... Of course, a search will turn up files in multiple directories, so I'm wracking my brain trying to think of an acceptable design that would make sense.

I could implement a check to see if the files selected are all in the same directory, and if not I could simply show my own custom menu (which will contain the most commonly used context menus, such as Cut, Copy, and Paste, and maybe if I'm feeling bold I'll enumerate the Send To Menu.

Most of the shell routines that accept multiple files only accept multiple files in the same directory. On the other hand, the most common reason to select multiple files in a search results window would be to cut or copy them from their current location.

Any suggestions as to what would be the most intuitive way to provide right-click menus for multiple files?

[Dias de verano]

I use Windows Search a lot to find files that are both in a folder and in folders under it, to show them in one "details view" list. Then I may sort on a column heading. Having done that, I often need to make non- or partly contiguous selections using Ctrl and/or Shift + left click and finally I'll right click. Any "improved" file search tool fails for me if I can't do all of these things.

[BC_Programmer]

Multiple selection via Shift, Control, and Shift+Control came free with the ListView itself 

But I won't be able to show the same menu Windows Explorer shows if files from more then one folder/directory are specified- I can of course easily create my own menu that will be shown with the most common options, and implement them myself as necessary. I'm already able to store Filenames to the clipboard that Explorer and other apps with understand as file specifications for pasting, so that won't be a biggie.

I'm thinking this idea for a custom VBScript to determine wether a file is a "match" allows for some zany searches, like searching for files whose size is a perfect square and also have at least one pair of characters in their name whose ASCII value summed together equals the ASCII value of at least one other character in the filename.

haven't looked very hard but no pre-built search tool that I'm aware of allows such power (I think the Index Query syntax might allow for control similar to this, though.

[BatchRocks]

You amaze me.

[Geek-9pm]

Hey BC,
If I use your program, will it show me everything on your computer?

I was thinking about Google Desktop. It will fine everything on your computer. And you can share it with Google.

[BC_Programmer]

You amaze me.

 

Oh yeah did I mention this isn't batch LOL

you should just see the code for the freakin context menu! Most of the documentation I could find about it were how to add an item to the menu programmatically, implementing some Obscure IContextMenu3 interfaces.

Still can't remember how I figured it out. Lost of page faults though...




I just remembered another piece of functionality my File library will need for this- my CFileChangeNotify Class and accompanying IChangeNotify Interface... Thankfully I've already got CAsyncProcess and IAsyncProcess working and implemented so simply implementing the IAsyncProcess within CFileChangeNotify should keep the client thread from getting blocked on the API call to FindFirstChangeNotification(). Simple, really.

Hey BC,
If I use your program, will it show me everything on your computer?

I was thinking about Google Desktop. It will fine everything on your computer. And you can share it with Google.

well no... you can see files on yours though!

Google Desktop and a few other search programs "index" the hard drive- my idea is to duplicate the raw simplicity of the windows 98 File Search Tool and add moar power to it's ability to filter... Oh yeah, and let it show more files... I was constantly hitting the limit for found files with the old tool when searching for the mask "*GOAT*.JPG", and it really reduced my enjoyment of said files. 

the "sharing with google" part of google desktop is probably not a plus LOL.

[BatchRocks]

You amaze me.

 

Oh yeah did I mention this isn't batch LOL

Sort of .

[BC_Programmer]

OK... I've decided to complete revamp how I was filtering the results from my FileSearch Class.

Right now, I implement a "IFileSearchCallback" and filter the results based on the inputs in the textboxes.


However- I have since decided that it would be much more powerful if it was possible to "Chain" different requirements.

For example- each Filter Specification would contain all the date, file masks, etc that appear right now- but the results that the filter comes up with (a match or no match) will also be able to be applied to the other results in a boolean arithmetic fashion.

This would make it fairly easy to, for example, Find files larger the 10 KB and smaller then 40 KB but not between 20 or 30 KB. one filter saying between 10 and 40, and another saying 20 and 30, that is Xored with the larger size specification filter.

This new addition will require some thought regarding my current interface design- likely a listview showing the basics of each item as well as it's combination mode with the previous item, selecting each item in the listview populates all the controls in each tab with the values of that specific filter.

Things could get messy, but as I said I want this to be a useful program, including both this cascaded filters feature as well as advanced WSH script based filtering is the sure way to do so.

[Geek-9pm]

Shell functions only works
with multiple files in the same directory...

That's easy to fix, If there is less that two files in a directory, just add a bogus file to the directory, but do not shoe it in your results. 

[BC_Programmer]

I'm not having any trouble with the file search routines themselves, they work quite flawlessly.


I think I phrased it wrong- what I meant was it will work with multiple files, but they must be in the same folder, for example, I can't show the context menu for say "C:\testfile.txt" and "C:\windows\shell32.dll", but I could show the same menu if testfile.txt was moved to the windows directory.

Also this was the Context Menu display functions, unfortunately it's a huge mess of Shell interfaces, Direct pointer manipulation and Subclassing code that somehow manages to work flawlessly. I went in recently to add the ability to show the menu for multiple files in the same dir, but the low level shell routines and IShellFolder interface methods seem to require the passing of a Folder PIDL and then an array of File PIDLs immediately beneath that folder. Whoever invented this whole PIDL business ought to be given a stern talking too...

In any case- I think the most often used context menu items will suffice- Cut,Copy,Paste, etc. are the most common options used.

It already works with multiple items in the same folder, it checks to make sure they are in the same folder before it tries to show the Explorer menu, and if they aren't it will just show the one I created. Easy as pie...


Surprisingly I've already gotten the feature I described in my last post working to the point where I feel comfortable that it's a feasible solution.

[BC_Programmer]

New update, regarding my issues with files such as pagefile.sys.

*resolved*

I decided to get somewhat creative. If "CreateFile" fails to get a handle to the file, then I try to use "FindFirstFile", which to no surprise works (no surprise since the filename was original acquired using the Find API). Thankfully, the WIN32_FIND_DATA structure has some useful information, so the routine simply copies the relevant data to the Class-level "BY_HANDLE_FILE_INFORMATION" structure that I am using to hold the information about the file while the CFile Object is active.


Additionally, my filter structure is working quite well. Here is a screenie for the curious:




Each of the filters shown in the top listview will be editable, removable, and their order can be changed. Just needs a cleanup of the UI. (for example, buttons with the "Add" button for modification of the filters)

The Editing occurs in a separate window- multiple windows can be open for editing different filters simultaneously.


Each Filter will be able to be saved/loaded to/from disk, and of course an entire set of search parameters can be saved as a "filterset".

[Broni]

When the beta will be released?

[BC_Programmer]

When the beta will be released?

Soon 

Just need to finish off some UI features. If I'm lucky I won't find any more bugs in my BCFile library and I'll be able to release it during the night 

Also I'll defer the while File Change notification business for Post Beta work, that'll save some time.


EDIT: Aye, got an Alpha:

http://www.megafileupload.com/en/file/85636/Distrib-zip.html

sorry about megafileupload... I hate it too. Any good alternatives?

[patio]

Context menu additions:

Send To
Scan With
Delete.

I see why you hate megafile....

Maybe an alternative...

[BC_Programmer]

Send To and Delete should be "trivial" to implement- just enumerate the Send To Special folder.

"Scan with" will require some research into the Virus scanner APIs, to inspect the installed Scanning programs.

As it stands now of course my custom multiple selection context menu will only need to be displayed when multiple files are selected that aren't all in the same folder; otherwise the standard Explorer menu will be displayed.

Interestingly enough it is slightly less trivial to add menu items to that menu; menus with submenus (such as "Scan with") probably would make me go insane if I tried to add them.

I'll see how well I go with a "Scan With" option...



As far as file hosting, I've found Fileupyours expires too quickly- but I did find another site that is less annoying:

http://www.sendspace.com/file/2hhknt

*note*- that is no different from the previous version


Anyways.... back to fixing the menus for both the filters and Found files lists...

[patio]

Got the Apha just now...
FYI Windows 7 and my Win2K are going to be the "sacrificial lambs"....

Ewe.

[BC_Programmer]

heh, two OS versions I haven't tested it on.

Since I don't have an installer yet... the installation is a bit involved... apologies...

EDIT: alright- I have an installer.

this should make future releases easier to dl and install...

http://www.sendspace.com/file/hh2sze

[Broni]

As for hosting, get a free account here: http://www.adrive.com/
It gives you 50GB of a free space.

[BC_Programmer]

Alright, I finally started working on the "killer" feature that I haven't seen in any other file search, or File access library, for that matter.

Alternate data streams.

So far I'm able to enumerate the alternate streams of a file and retrieve their names, which is the hardest part of the whole thing. Once I finish implementing Alternate data stream support into my "BCFile" file access library, I will be able to integrate the whole process into the search program as well. The tricky part will be presenting the information- acquiring stream information is costly when done in a tight loop as it would be during a file search, so it would be costly in terms of performance to display a list of the streams in a file within the listview. So the question is how the heck I'm going to present this information? perhaps the ability to search for streams as well as within them, too- but only adding relevant columns when necessary?

This would be an intrigueing feature, I think- haven't seen one like it in any other search app...

[BC_Programmer]

another release.

An installer.


still requires Run As administrator to work on vista though. I'm pretty sure that's a VB runtime issue.

here


a few issues:

(some right-click options when multiple selecting don't do anything. the explorer context menu is fine, however)

Scan With... will take some time to implement- I could always create the menu from a INI file that can be edited to add appropriate commandlines, but there is a way to enumerate Antivirus applications... it's just ridiculously messy, and uses a lot of direct COM code that VB is supposed to do for me.

Apparently AV programs register a "IOfficeAntivirus" interface in a Component Category, so I would need to use the COM API to retrieve the CLSIDs of each component that is in that category using the COMCAT API, then use a 32-bit integer variable to store the pointer retrieved from it's creation through CoCreateInstance, at which point I would need to copy that into an object of type IUnknown, and then call QueryInterface on that IUnknown to get a reference to it's IOfficeAntivirus Interface, which I will have to find a type library for... Or heaven forbid- try to create it myself...


very messy...

but doable, with enough effort.

[BC_Programmer]

Well- I've decided that Scanning functionality is "easy" enough to add without changing code by editing the MENU XML files- it surely isn't worth the effort for me to re-learn IDL just to define that blasted interface- last time I tried that was for that IDispatchEx, and needless to say that didn't work very well.

In any case, I have successfully implemented the "custom" Open with dialog, shown when file that aren't in the same folder are right-clicked... or, that will be the idea, now it shows it for any multiple-selection right-click.





The "open with", information, much to my amusement, is stored quite plainly in the registry.

using the file extension of the selected file(s), or * if they don't have a common extension, the routine looks at HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT for that extension, and enumerates the  openwithList key, which contains sections that are simply the names of Executables. Additionally it opens the Openwithprogids() and recursively calls itself for those progids found (for example, on my computer ".AIF" has openWithprogIds that reference both AIFFILE as well as an acdsee progid, both of which are also present under hkey_classes_root.

Now armed with a list of Program executable names, I was faced with the task of converting them to absolute paths.

thankfully, the HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\App Paths key contained all the data I needed (except that mspaint is referenced as pbrush... so that doesn't work...), and I am able to successfully convert it into a full file path.


And then I simply duplicate what was already present for my "Send To" code- IE execute the program and pass along all the files as arguments.

Sorry for the nitty gritty there, I thought it was a convoluted and ridiculously roundabout way of doing things. And of course I had to convert the names to "friendly" names, so I had to use the FileInformation routines with raw buffers. quite messy, but you can't really tell just by looking at it...

[BC_Programmer]

new release:
On GlitchPC.com:

http://glitchpc.com/forums/downloads.php?do=file&id=3

fileupyours:

http://www.fileupyours.com/view/252195/BCSearch.zip