DocFetcher software is a desktop search tool. Given a set of documents, it creates index files, on which you can then run fast searches for documents that contain specific keywords. You can think of it as Google for your local document repository.
Create an index: Right-click on the "Search Scope" area on the left panel and select "Create..." Now choose a folder to be indexed. For starters, this should be small folder with not too many files, like, say, 50? (You can also drag a directory out of your file manager and drop it on the "Search Scope" area.)
Perform a search: Enter a search string in the uppermost text box and hit Enter. Every time you perform a search, a new result tab will be opened. Note that the result tab is grouped into pages (just like Google) if the number of results exceeds a certain limit. You can navigate through the pages using the controls on the top right.
Filter or sort the results: You may enter some values into the "Minimum / Maximum Filesize" group to filter out files below the minimum value and/or above the maximum value. You can also check or uncheck items in the "Filetypes" and "Search Scope" area to filter out certain file types or files in specific folders. Click on the column headers of the result list to sort the results by the chosen criterion.
Open a document: Just double-click on one of the items on the result page if you think you've found what you've been looking for.
Update your indexes: If you add, remove or modify documents in your document repository, it will get out of sync with the indexes. If DocFetcher is running by the time you modify your repository, it can update the indexes automatically. If the application was not running, you have to select "Update" from the Search Scope context menu the next time you run it in order to get the most up-to-date search results.
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Here are some key features of "DocFetcher":
· Detection of HTML pairs: Pairs of HTML files and associated folders (e.g. "foo.htm" and "foo_files") are treated as a single document. See here for a description of how this works, the rare situations where it might not work, and how to avoid these situations.
· Customizable text file extensions: You can specify which files should be handled as plain text via the preferences dialog - click on the preferences button on the top right. This feature might be useful for programmers who want to index source code files. (HTML file extensions can be customized also.)
· Automatic index updating on file system events: While DocFetcher is running, it can listen to file system events in the indexed directories and update the appropriate indexes if necessary. This can be useful, for example, if you want to modify a document (e.g. change its title) that you've just found in a search. Tip: The context menu of the result list contains an "open parent folder" entry that allows you to quickly get to a certain document file.
· Send DocFetcher to the system tray: Click on the "Send to system tray" button on the top right to move DocFetcher to the system tray, thus saving some space on the taskbar without closing and restarting the application for each search. Please note, however, that DocFetcher eats up a significant amount of resources while it's running (25 MB of RAM on my machine: application + java runtime), so better shut it down if you really don't need it for a long time - especially if you're going to play a computer game.
What's New in This Release: [ read full changelog ]
· This version adds an emergency bugfix: The program was completely unusable due to some debugging code which was left inside by accident.
· The program displayed an "out of memory" error every time a key was pressed in the search field.
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