Tag: search

  • MemPad: Freeware That Is A More Than A Note Organizer

    MemPad: Freeware That Is A More Than A Note Organizer

    MemPad

    MemPad calls itself a text outliner. It is more precisely a freeware 140KB download which is a notes organizer, one which stores notes in a tree structure.

    It offers basic features for fonts and colors, auto save – in minutes increments and/or automatically as text is entered – search (and replace) across all notes and the ability to export notes. It does have some more advanced features like internal linking between notes (highlight and right click to create links) and linking to system files or programs which can be used to launch anything from web links to executables from within MemPad.

    With a F6 click (or Page —>Diary Page) MemPad creates a diary page for the current day and therefore it can be used as a structured diary program. It is also possible to move nodes and child nodes or pages up and down to restructure the tree. Additionally a page can be locked to provide temporary protection against accidental edits, a sort of read only format. It is also possible to encrypt a page to keep it away from prying eyes.

    MemPad can do more via the Lookup.txt and Launcher.txt files found initially in its Examples folder. The chevron button on the far right of MemPad’s toolbar can be turned into a launcher by populating the Launcher.txt file with statements like Calculator;calc.exe for example – to launch the system calculator. Lookups, done via right clicking highlighted text, can be added with entries like Wikipedia;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/$ for example – to look up the highlighted word in Wikipedia. Note that to use the lookups and the launcher the Lookup.txt and Launcher.txt files must be moved from the Examples folder to Mempad’s root folder.

    MemPad is more powerful than its size or ‘text outliner’ description may indicate. Its help file has more, from how to modify text margins and date formats to how to more efficiently work with its launcher and lookup features.

  • Ultra File Search: Free And Lightweight

    Ultra File Search: Free And Lightweight

    Ultra File Search does what it’s name suggests, it can search for files and for text inside files too. It can do that not only for files residing on local drives but for files on other drives such as on a DVD or on an USB key.

    Ultra File Search supports masks for filtering the search into a number of specified criteria. These criteria include not only the more common date and size masks but also less common attributes such as read only, compressed, encrypted, temporary and others including searching system or hidden files.

    The ‘Containing Text’ tab can search any words, all words, as phrase and other criteria such as restricting the search to a matching case. Here it is also possible to bypass media, image, system and hidden files so as to not waste time searching for text inside them. It should be noted that Ultra File Search does support searching inside EXE and DLL file formats.

    One additional and potentially time saving feature is the ‘Append Results’ one. Checking this option makes it possible to keep any displayed search results visible when additional and subsequent results are performed. Therefore various search results can be combined into one results window.

    If needed parent or containing folders can be opened from within the program. Results can also be exported into various (plain, tabbed, csv, HTML and XML) text formats. Ultra File Search is available in a portable edition that can be run from flash or USB drives. Ultra File Search is freeware and runs on Windows NT 4.0 and newer versions.

  • Freeware CleanHaven Dusts Off Your Text

    Freeware CleanHaven Dusts Off Your Text

    CleanHaven is an utility made to clean lines, paragraphs or passages of text. In doing so it has the potential to save time and many a headache. Any text pasted into it’s window (see image) can be operated upon in several ways and a results window, after clicking the clean button, presents the finished and cleaned text to the user.

    Some of its features are as follows:

    Case: This includes the likes of ‘Title Case’ to capitalize words, ‘Sentence Case’ to start new sentences capitalized, convert to uppercase and convert to lower case.

    Sort: This works with words or sentences as if they are individual entries in table cells. Words can be sorted in ascending, descending, case, random and other orders.

    Duplicates: This removes duplicates or shows or hides duplicates.

    Remove: This has a lot of options. They include removing extra spaces, extra returns, spaces, punctuation, non numbers, non letters and more.

    Personal: This converts text into several formats such as separating first and last names into an indented position ready for emails, letters or documents.

    Info: This does word count and others. It also does something resembling a spell check called ‘Only Correct Spellings’ and ‘Only Incorrect Spellings’. In my tests this did not work, the presence of a ‘words’ file in the program folder notwithstanding.

    CleanHaven’s Replace tab does the traditional find and replace operation. The Settings tabs let you view text in tables, this helps if the input text has tabs since tabs are used to differentiate and place text into different table cells. Consequently one can choose to work on certain columns only.

    Results can be exported into *.txt, *.xls and *.csv formats. CleanHaven is also available for the Mac and Linux and is a capable efficiency and productivity freeware.

  • neoSearch: A New Way To Search A PC

    neoSearch: A New Way To Search A PC


    neoSearch is a lightweight, 531KB download, option in the array of computer search utilities. Upon launch it takes a minute or more, depending on system size, to index the drive(s) so that it can present search results almost instantaneously. With neoSearch search results are presented and updated in real time when the user starts typing.

    neoSearch’s options include adding system folders to it’s indexing, because it ignores those folders by default, including and excluding any number of folders from it’s indexing and therefore its search results and a scheduler for future indexing which includes a ‘manual’ option.

    neoSearch suffers from a few drawbacks that are all by design, they are:

    The program delays its own launch, when first opened and not when already running in the background, by asking for an update check and somewhat bizarrely makes the user wait five seconds if the update check is refused.
    The program’s executable is placed in the system’s Application Data folder (alongside its index database) and so the program has no presence in the Program Files folder.
    Only the first six search results are presented immediately and there is no scrolling to see additional results. An extra click (pressing Enter or on the magnifying glass icon) is required to open the full search results in a new window.

    neoSearch is capable of indexing shared folders over a network, supports wildcards and works on Windows XP, 2003, Vista, 2008 and 7.

  • Listary Makes Searching Easier

    Listary Makes Searching Easier

    Listary is a windows program that helps the user search for and find files faster but it is not a normal search tool or utility. It is activated using the (customizable) Win+W keys and its interface consists solely of a small floating box (see image). When a list of files is open pressing the program hotkey and then immediately typing a few letters of the file name one can filter down to a file name and therefore locate it. The strength of Listary is that it supports many lists or windows, these include but are not limited to Windows Explorer, Task Manager, Registry Editor, Windows Desktop and the file Open/Save dialog box. The program options (accessible via the program’s tray icon) lets the user change the search mode to what it calls traditional search. In traditional search one must type the first letter of the file name – instead of any any letter in the file name, a feature of Listary’s Default search mode – to start a search. Listary also supports the use of wild card characters (* and ?) in its traditional search mode.

    Typing / in the same floating box presents the user with a set of predefined shortcut or commands. These include opening the command prompt in the same directory as the open list or window, copying folder paths and others.

    Additionally Listary reserves the Win+A keys to open the system’s default text editor so that the user can have quick access to a text editor. A good use of this Listary feature is when a text area (gmail’s compose email window for example) is active or in focus then the text editor will automatically contain any text already typed so one is ready to continue editing inside the text editor.

    The aforementioned text editing feature doesn’t really belong to a program geared mainly towards search but is a welcome one. A video on the program’s homepage showcases its features with a few examples. The program runs on Windows XP, Vista and 7 and has a pro version with support for regular expressions and a few other extras.

  • File Hound: Freeware File Search

    File Hound: Freeware File Search

    File Hound is Described as

    …Search for text inside any file on your computer. It can search all kinds of text files, including pdf, doc etc.


    File Hound - Freeware
    It is a simple program that does its job well and as mentioned in its description searches inside *.pdf files too. It is not limited to pure text files as it can search inside *.dll, *.exe and other such files as well. Another advantage is that the search results for *.pdf files are shown in the program’s own search results window. As of this date folder paths must be typed or pasted into the Folder box as there is no browse button available but enabling the Associate with folders setting adds a Hound entry into folders’ right click context menu. It is also possible to expand or limit a search by including subfolders and restricting file sizes.

    File Hound is a useful, fast, lightweight and freeware search utility. It does require the .NET 2.0 framework on the host system.

  • StartUp Is A Launcher…And An AppManager?

    StartUp Is A Launcher…And An AppManager?

    StartUp is described by its author as

    WPF tool to help you launch your programs easily.

    To start off the developer page does not mention the name ‘StartUp’. The only place this program’s name is visible is in the solitary screenshot. One can easily confuse its name to be ‘AppManager’ as that is the domain URL and also the title of page. That minor quibble aside, on to the program itself.


    StartUp

    Upon installation StartUp looks up or indexes the system’s start menu, quick launch and recent documents entries and presents them in a rectangular interface (see image) and also groups them into areas. Right clicking anywhere on the program window or clicking the + icon one can create groups for additional shortcuts. The program supports dragging and dropping shortcuts, executables or almost any file to create links to them. It is also possible to drag a file over a program icon, while holding the Alt key, to force the file to be opened with that particular program.
    The program is minimized to the system tray using its X or close icon or by just pressing the Esc key. By default the program window can be maximized by using the Alt and ~ keys or by what it calls “mouse activation”. To activate the program using the mouse single click the top left hand edge of the screen. This activation feature can be turned off using the program’s preferences.
    Perhaps the best part of StartUp is the integrated search feature. Click anywhere on the program interface and just start typing, a search box narrows your choices as you type (see image).
    StartUp requires, at a minimum, the .NET 3.0 framework and is a 164KB download. It is released under the Microsoft Public License.

  • PlainEdit.NET Is A Complete Text Editor

    PlainEdit.NET Is A Complete Text Editor

    PlainEdit.NET is described by its author as

    PlainEdit.NET is a text editor for ANSI, UTF-8 and Unicode files


    PlainEditNET

    The list of features of PlainEdit.NET are impressive and it is a very complete text editor and notepad replacement. Its features include many of expected and common set like syntax highlighting for many languages and search and replace. But even those regular features are extended in that PlainEdit.NET suports find as you go style search ala Firefox – and only few other text editors. It has such additional features as the ability to choose text encased in HTML tags only. To bookmark a line to be able to return to it any time. To insert such things as the file path, date, special characters and the output of a command line argument. For the latter one can for example choose to output the dir (directory) command to get a list of files in a certain folder inserted into the document. PlainEdit.NET can also paste or input the current clipboard content in various positions in the open file. It can convert text to and from various formats including encoding and case conversion and even to join lines or to eliminate whitespaces and lines that match certain selectable criteria. Under the Extras menu the Configure Shortcuts submenu allows the user to edit or set keyboard shortcuts for such things as launching external applications.

    PlainEdit.NET is one of the most feature rich, even beyond those mentioned in this review, and impressive text editors I have reviewed and used, it works well with ANSI, UTF-8 and Unicode files and it requires the host system to be running the 2.0 .NET framework but it is a 526KB RARed portable download. The accompanying help file however is in German only while the product site itself is available both in German and English.

  • Hyperwords Adds Even More Usability To Firefox

    Hyperwords Adds Even More Usability To Firefox

    Hyperwords is a firefox add-on that adds useful features and shortcuts to some common and may be not so common tasks. The default install available on the author’s website and via the Mozilla add-ons site presents a menu any time a word is highlighted or selected. Via the menu one can search google, Microsoft’s bing, the web page the word resides on, and others for the selected word. The search options do not stop there as share prices can be checked if the selected word is a stock symbol, the word can be searched for on wikipedia, wiktionary, urban dictionary and other places. A shop shortcut checks amazon, eBay and others. One can share the text via email, twitter, facebook, and other supported blogging platforms as well. In some cases even more useful is the option to copy the text as plain text or as link and send it to notepad for example. The translate option presents many languages to choose from and replaces the chosen words with the translated version, however it is not immediately obvious how the original text can be reset to its original language. The view option scans the page for occurrences of the same word, paragraphs with the same word and more.
    Hyperwords

    The settings of Hyperwords include some additional possibilities and advanced features and give a good amount of control over the appearance and behaviour of this add-on. The first and perhaps most important in terms of making Hyperwords less intrusive is the ability to make its menu not appear any time a text is selected but to use it via Firefox’s own right click context menu or to require the user to click enter after highlighting a text. The aforementioned options for this are not the only ones available as others can be chosen as the list of settings is rather extensive. The included currency converter, available when a number is highlighted, can be tweaked for example and shortcuts for its use edited. The shop services such as Amazon can be localized to search local shops. One can set how search results are presented as well with the default being a new tab in the foreground.
    Hyperwords is rather useful and the developers have provided its users ways to make it less intrusive and perhaps more interesting. Downloading it requires the acceptance of privacy policy that insists that no IP addresses or identifiable information are recorded but that stats are collected only to improve the add-on. A Windows application for use with software other than firefox is said to be in the works as well.

  • Depeche View Lets You Search For Text Fast

    Depeche View Lets You Search For Text Fast

    Depeche View is described by its author as

    fast search tool loads all text file content from a folder into memory

    Depeche View is capable of loading a very large amount of text in seconds and all into one window or instance of the application. In my usage I loaded over 100MB of text files in mere seconds. It does this by loading the files into memory so the program will actually show as a high user in the system’s task manager.


    Depeche View

    The real strength of Depeche View is in its other capabilities and the number of actions that can be taken with minimal, sometimes one, click. To start, Depeche View is a ‘search as you type’ application similar to that of Firefox’s search therefore eliminating extra typing and dialogue boxes. Some highlights (no pun intended) of the program are described in brief in the following lines. Shift-click on a word and all instances of the word will be highlighted. Right click on one instance of the search results to open a second window showing the search results leaving the original window for other searches or operations. Restrict the search to a case sensitive one by clicking the Case button to the bottom right of the program window. Click the Filter button in the same location to be presented with all and only the lines that contain the searched item. Use Showtab to highlight tabs and spaces in the opened files. Click Bookmk and then Alt-click a word to bookmark all instances of that word.

    Depeche View has so many tricks and possibilities and even an Easy Settings button, the round object or button to the left of the bottom menu items. Pressing it deactivates such actions as the one-click search. It is not immediately clear to me why this makes the program easier to use but it is an option to try out.

    As mentioned Depeche View has simply so many possibilities that can be played around with. Just as an additional example one can capture a clipboard item and perform a search for it. Read further in the ‘Further reading: help system contents’ section of the program’s homepage.

    Depeche View can be used to search inside text files, within a folder, like in such things as source code, logs or simple text files and it can be set to read .bin files and hidden and system files as well, an extended edition can look into archive or .zip and .jar files too. It is freeware and doesn’t require installation.