README.md

SearchEverywhere

简体中文

SearchEverywhere
^ The icon is stolen from a repo whose name clashed with mine LOL.

The first Fully-Libre GUI File Indexer on macOS and Windows!
SearchEverywhere is a cross-platform GUI filesystem searcher combining the merits of find, locate and Everything, plus file content searches, plus an intuitive expression editor allowing easy costruction of complex search expressions with simple mouse clicks.
Works on Linux, macOS and Windows.

IMPORTANT NOTES

This README is about the GUI frontend of orient. For the CLI and the library, see orient.
Complete list of features/strengthes/weaknesses unrelated to GUI like performance and find compatibility are also there.

The newest version is v0.4.0, which is not stable yet. All the following demostrations, screenshots are taken on v0.3.1.

Not a Full Blown Content Searcher

While SearchEverywhere do offer content searching features, file content are NOT indexed and therefore content searching do not scale well.
ALWAYS use content searches in combination with name matches, or set a smaller starting point before content searching.

RAM issue on Linux

For some reason, which seems like a kernel or Qt issue, memory usage on Linux grows rather quickly. On my laptop with 1.2M files, it starts up at 65MiB. Several searches and updatedbs later, memory usage skyrockets before ultimately sitting between 350~400MiB. (Less than Chromium/Electron😅)

Only on Linux do this happen. On both Windows and macOS, memory usage sit well below 120MiB when idle, with short spikes to <200MiB during updatedb, after which memory usage backs down.

valgrind detected no leaking issues either, suggesting it may probably a framework or system issue. Feel free to talk on issue tracker and discussion panel here.
For now however, a good solution is to restart the app often as if it were a memory leaking monster, or better, use linux-y orient CLI.

Client/Server Architecture

Client/Server architectures offer a high extent of code separation, the ability to connect to remote systems and a higher level of security. In case of orient and SearchEverywhere here, that would help SearchEverywhere focus entirely on GUI and less on orient's internal implementation details, boosting compatibility with older orient versions. Meanwhile, searching files on other computers with orient server on would also become possible. (A good analogy would be SQL servers: they query tables whereas we cuery files.)
The memory issue may also be solved as long as it is indeed caused by Qt framework.

Unfortunately though, adding a connector layer requires substantial changes on orient and radical changes on SearchEverywhere. A connector will be worked on if this repo reached 256 stars, so smash that star button if the app proves useful for you or if you find it interesting!

Comparison

Identical to the Comparison section in orient

	Linux	Windows	macOS	Android	License
Everything	👎NO	👍YES	👎NO	👎NO	Proprietary
find	👍YES	👎NO	👎NO	👎NO	GPLv3
fsearch	👍YES	👎NO	👎NO	👎NO	GPLv2
locate	👍YES	👎NO	👎NO	👎NO	GPLv3
orient	👍YES	👍YES	👍YES	👎NO	GPLv3

Continued Table

	-and -or	Invert Index	Match Parent	GUI	CLI
Everything	👍YES	👎NO	Partial	👍YES	😕
find	👍YES	👎NO	👎NO	👎NO	👍YES
fsearch	👍YES	👎NO	Partial	👍YES	👎NO
locate	👎NO	👍YES	👎NO	👎NO	👍YES
orient	👍YES	👍v0.4+	👍YES	👍YES	👍YES

Notes:

• Partially matching parent and children means while they do provide options to match a file's parent or dir's children, such searches are confined to string matches instead of all the app's features.
• Everything CLI seems to have all results prettified, making it very hard to use in combination with other tools, hence the 😕 face.

GUI Features

Only GUI features are listed here. Non-GUI related features are in CLI documentation.

Previewing Content

Once a search finishes, the content of a given result can be previewed at the right side of the window called previewer:

For previewing to work, SearchEverywhere window must be at least 600px in width, achieved by either stretching by dragging the edge of window by mouse or maximizing. To turn off previewing, previewed content must be cleared by clicking Clear Preview before dragging the window back to less than 600px wide.
Here are a list of document types that can be previewed and the preequisites in order to preview them:

• All types of images, like .png .jpg .svg .webm

  No animation for .gif unfortunately.

• Plain text files
• Rendering static HTML files

  Not a full-blown browser

• Rendering Markdown files
• Multimedia files like .mp{3,4} .mov

  Require SEEV_PREVIEW_MEDIA option be set compile-time
  Qt Multimedia does not run my antique MacBook🥹, therefore no media previewing unless manual compilation from source on macOS.

• First page of PDF files
• First page of Office files provided that LibreOffice is installed in PATH

  which is silly since orient is well capable of locating office executable by -name soffice -a -updir bin -a -executable and the PATH requirement simply shows how incompetent the dev is.

Linux, macOS and Windows

The First Libre File Indexer Ever on macOS and Windows!😜
Also localization for 3 languages fr es and zh_CN are provided. When opened with system language being one of them (or setting the LC_ALL env variable for testing), the GUI in respective language will show up. Translations are done via Google Translate so no quality assurance.

Screenshot on macOS and Windows respectively:

Expression Editor

New users are likely to get overwhelmed by the plethora of features thrown at them. Thankfully, an ugly, yet intuitive, expression editor comes to rescue:

The expression in this figure searches for all .c files whose contents contain something like helloworld.

Usually the editor is situated in the upper-left corner of main page, but it can turn into a separate dialog for editing pleasure by clicking the button below when the corner proved too small.
Matchers Supported by the Editor:

• Always true/false -true -false
• Conditional -and -or
• Inverse -not !
• Path matches -strstr -bregex -name -fuzz
• File type -type
• File stat -size -{u,g}id -{a,m,c}{time,min}
• File content -content-{strstr,regex,fuzz}
• File accessibility -readable -writable -executable
• Parent and Children -updir -downdir
• Prune if (must be used with And) -prunemod

User Guide

Indexing Configuration

On first startup, users will be asked for the root paths and ignored paths while indexing. They can be re-configured by clicking Advanced Options - Edit orient Settings even after the wizard ends. Default config works for most devices, but read through to see if yours belongs to the most.

Root Paths

Root paths are where filesystem indexing start. For Windows users, these are typically drive paths like C:\ D:\.
The stock settings may work out of the box, but take note of the HDD and SSD root paths. All root paths must correspond to the type of disk it is on, otherwise indexing speed will suffer a great drop.
If there are any HDD root paths not listed, be sure to add them.
When unsure, place all root paths into SSD one, since the majority of modern computers are running on random-access-friendly SSDs.

Ignored Paths

All ignored paths are, well, ignored while indexing.
Typically infrequently used or volatile paths are ignored, like external drives, Linux auto filesystems and temporary files. Default setting include all of them (aside from /dev /sys on Linux).

Windows Users Note: By default C:\Windows is ignored as it is scarsely accessed by normal users and has many, many files, about 1 million or so. Remove it from ignored paths if you insist on indexing it. According to previous section, C:\Windows should become a root path if it is indexed.
Also Note: Some Windows systems' C:\Windows are called C:\WINDOWS. SearchEverywhere is case sensitive, therefore double check what your C:\Windows is named if indexing is taking too long.
On Windows there may be a trailing backslash \ for each path which are for Unix conformity and can be ignored.

Start Indexing

Actually indexing already starts during first time configuration. After that a message box shows up whose OK button become clickable after indexing finishes. Clicking it brings the main page up.
The Cancel button also brings the main page, but discards indexing process already made. Do not click it unless substantial changes are made to default configuration, like moving SSD root path to HDD root path or adding ignored path.

Clicking Scan Filesystem button on main page initiates an index update. Index update also automatically starts once per hour, but only if SearchEverywhere is left open.
An index update is needed for configuration edits to take effect.

Setting Start Points

Unlike root and ignored paths, start points are set per search. By default the start point is root directory, meaning all indexed files are searched.
Setting a different start point may be useful for finding files in a smaller area, but make sure they do not overlap or the overlapped portion will be searched multiple times.

Ready, GO

Now it is time for searches! Under the main page are 4 "saved" searches which demostrates and tests SearchEverywhere's features. Give them a shot to test if SearchEverywhere is actually working.

Searches can be saved for future use and will also appear here.

Installation

Grab the precompiled binary from Release and they should work. Windows version additionally requires MSVC Runtime

Unfortunalely macOS dmg do not support previewing multimedia😭
The macOS ARM version is missing since I don't have one such machine🫥. Feel free to report whether it works on issue or discussion.

Currently this app is too little-tested to release to a distribution.
May release to Arch AUR first btw.

Build from Source

Building from source is recommended in the early stage of release. Give it a shot!
Build dependencies:

• Qt Widgets
• Qt Multimedia (Multimedia Preview Only)
• CMake
• PCRE2
• rapidfuzz
• GoogleTest (orient Test Only)

Aside from CMake & Qt, dependencies can be auto-downloaded by CMake.
Using an installed one is also possible, should you have already installed some of them, via toggling configure options below.

Configure Options:

• SEEV_PREVIEW_MEDIA: Enable previewing multimedia
• ORIE_TEST: Build GoogleTest test suites
• ORIE_SYSTEM_PCRE2: Use System PCRE2 Library instead of compiling a new one.
• ORIE_LINK_STATIC: Statically link orient executable
• ORIE_SYSTEM_RAPIDFUZZ: Use System rapidfuzz Library (header only)

rapidfuzz has some issues with building as sub project so SEEV_SYSTEM_ORIENT is not stable (yet).

Replace the OPTION below with your enabled options, and run the following commands:

git clone https://github.com/cxxsucks/SearchEverywhere.git
cd orient; mkdir build; cd build
cmake -DOPTION1=ON -DOPTION2=ON -DCMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=Release ..
make -j$(nproc)
sudo make install

Build Linux AppImage

TODO (not as easy as it may seem due to Qt deployment plugin bug)

Credits

The Name and Icon

While aimlessly browsing DuckDuckGo and GitHub for an icon of this SearchEverywhere, I came across another SearchEverywhere.
It seems to be Windows only and dependent on non-free-as-in-freedom Everything, which kinda ruins the purpose of it using free-as-in-freedom GPLv3 license. Despite lacking core functionalities, its UI is miles ahead this SearchEverywhere's and, above all, contains an icon that is literally defined for SearchEverywhere.

And, per Stallman's wish, I declared the icon independent of its original non-free dependency Everything, aka, stole it.

Do check that SearchEverywhere out, even though it is in Chinese and MSWindows Only😭.

Others

• Qt for GUI Framework
• LibreOffice for Office document previewing