Why doesn't Index....Index everything?

DEVONthink Tips
1

I have a folder with lots of old Visual FoxPro type files (VCX, SCX, etc.), but they all have a standard “DBF” type format.

Now, EasyFind, is the ONLY tool that seems to be able to successfully search these files and find search matches. That’s both surprising and a little scary since I cannot find another utility, anywhere, that can do it.

Even something like a $find -d -name **.*" | xargs grep “searchTerm”

Doesn’t find most of the files.

Which brings me to DTPO.

I indexed the same folder that EasyFind has no problems with, but DTPO finds nothing for any of my search terms. Instead, I get a log with a bunch of “unknown” file formats.

Yeah I know, but why don’t you index them (make them searchable) anyway at least? Your own EasyFind knows how to do it.

I’m still looking for the perfect search utility and I wish it were DTPO. However, only the free EasyFind seems to be up to the task of actually searching my files.

(Yes, I know DTPO isn’t a “Spotlight Replacement”, but come on…).

In fairness, even FoxTrot Professional Search, which does create indexes also found NOTHING in my search folder.

I hope a future version of DTPO will be more robust and actually index all the files…or that a future version of EasyFind will also index and, not only find all files as it does now, but be much faster.

Thanks,

  • m
2

EasyFind handles all files like plain text but that doesn’t work very well (or not at all) in case of unknown, proprietary third-party file formats. And indexing this would be even worse. E.g. this would bloat the index, decrease the performance and increase the memory usage a lot. And searching would be still very limited (basically to ASCII strings). Therefore third-party Spotlight plugins are required for unknown filetypes, most applications using proprietary formats include them.

3

Huh?

Actually, EasyFind, per my posting was the only utility that found just about everything in all the proprietary formats except PDF, unfortunately.

I suppose this might not work, but how about just opening each file and doing a sub-string search in it for the search term? That still might not work for all files, but at least it’s looking at every file.

The key thing for me when searching is to find what I’m searching for. I could care less how big an index is if the smallness of the index prevents me from actually finding the relevant documents.

So where is the utility that will search EVERY file on my search folder?

Time to write one of my own, I guess. :frowning:

  • m
4

Basically, I’m looking for a Mac Equivalent to this:

FileLocator Pro. mythicsoft.com/welcome

It only runs on Windows so far.

It’s the best programmer search utility I’ve ever found and have been looking for something, anything, on the mac that comes close.

Most of the other MS utilities, like Beyond Compare, etc., are now on the mac, but not this little gem.

For serious searching, I always, sadly, jump over to my windows VM.

:frowning:

  • m
5

You could write a Spotlight mdimporter for Visual FoxPro files :slight_smile:

6

LOL

FileLocator Pro does it all (and zips, PDFs, DOCX, etc.) for $49.

Appreciate your reply.

  • m
7

Well, Visual FoxPro files are of course much more important & useful on Windows but rarely used (or basically unused) on the Mac and therefore there’s no Spotlight mdimporter available.

8

You’re missing the exact point I was trying to make: You should be able to just search all files regardless of Spotlight (ugh!) or other index. Open each file and…Search.

That’s what FileLocatorPro does for $49.

And, FLP even has a cute RegEx builder which works for most RegExes. It’s almost worth the $49 for that.

Sadly, there is not a single utility on the Mac I’ve been able to find that will search … EVERYTHING.

Sigh…

:frowning:

  • m
9

Again, all I was saying is that a professional file search utility needs to NOT depend on Spotlight.

:slight_smile:

10

DEVONthink doesn’t depend on Spotlight’s index, it’s only using Spotlight’s plugins (.mdimporter) for unknown file formats to create its own index. And if a file format is popular, there’s usually a third-party Spotlight plugin available. And that plugin is used by Spotlight, DEVONthink, DEVONsphere Express, FoxTro Pro and maybe more applications.

11

Right, but that misses a lot.

FileLocatorPro, as one example, doesn’t depend on any indexes. It’s slower, for sure, but it finds…everything.

That’s what I want. I could care less about how trim or elegant the index is. With a File Search Utility, if I can’t find the files that match my search term, then that utility is a zero for me.

Note: DTPO is extremely useful for projects where I need to track documents relating to that project. It’s never let me down (and I love DTPO), but I’m not putting DTPO in a File Search catalog in the first place.

In short, there is yet to be a single utility on the mac that comes close to the $49 utility called FileLocatorPro.

I continue to be baffled why.

  • m
12

Like EasyFind according to your first post. And that’s free :slight_smile:

13

HoudahSpot posted an update that “can find files in folders not indexed by Spotlight. The folders need to be explicitly listed in the [HoudahSpot] Locations pane”