FileQuest  -  A file search utility

by Alan Wrigley

Version 1.00

How often have you become frustrated because you know that somewhere on your hard disc is a file whose name (or a part of whose name) you can remember, but not the location? Opening all your directories by hand would be a very time-consuming business, so what you need is a program to do it for you. FileQuest is just such a program.

Running FileQuest installs an icon on the icon bar in the usual manner. The icon bar menu has just two options, Info and Quit - no prizes for guessing what they do!

The control window
Clicking Select or Adjust on the icon bar icon opens the control window. This has two writable icons in the upper half, one for the search path and the other for the search string. The search path is the top-level directory from which you wish to start the search, and all subdirectories and files within them will be examined for a match. The search string is the filename you are looking for. You can use wildcarded expressions here (i.e. # for a single character, * for any number of characters), so if for example you are looking for a template file that might be called Template, Templates or Template2D etc., then entering a search string of template* will find all these. Note that neither the search path nor the search string is case sensitive.

To help you set the search path more quickly, you can drag any directory icon from a filer window into FileQuest's control window, or onto its icon bar icon, and the pathname of that directory will be established as the search path. Alternatively, you can drag the directory icon in the control window into any filer window and it will set the directory into which it is dragged as the search path. The latter process enables you to set root directories more easily.

Search parameters
At the lower left-hand side of the control window is a group of option icons which set various parameters for the search. These are Files, Directories, View progress and Beep. If the Files option is set then FileQuest will examine all file names for a match. If the Directories option is set then it will examine all directory names. You can obviously have both these options set, but you must have at least one set or else an error will be given when you try to start the search.

The View progress option determines whether the progress window is kept open during the search. This window shows you the current pathname being searched and is therefore a useful way to see how far the search has progressed. However, keeping this window open makes the search process a little slower and so the option is provided to turn it off by using the option icon. Note that you can turn the window on and off while searching if required.

If the Beep option is switched on then the program will emit a short beep each time it finds a match.

Starting a search
To start the search, click on the Start icon or press Return in either of the writable icons. The status display will change to "Searching". If the View progress option is ticked, a further window will open showing the current path being searched. The search process is fullymultitasking so you can leave a search running while you do other tasks on the desktop.

While searching is in progress, the Start icon changes to Pause, and a further icon appears labelled Abort. Clicking on the latter will stop the search. Clicking on the Pause icon will pause the operation and its label will change to Continue. Clicking on the icon again will continue the search operation. You can also operate the Pause/Continue icon using the Return key as long as the window still has the input focus. If the focus is lost, it will be restored next time you click on the Pause/Continue icon.

When the first match is found, another window will open showing the pathname of the matched file together with a sprite showing its filetype. As further matches are found they will be added to this window. Double-clicking on any item in the match list window with Select will run the item, while double-clicking with Adjust will open the directory that contains the object. Note that because the whole process is multitasking, you can run a file from the match list window while the search is still going on for other files.

Copyright  Rheingold Enterprises 1996
