How to use Finders Keepers

How to use Finders Keepers

How to Search Files


Click on the “Find” button to start a Find operation.

In Finders Keepers, there are four ways to find what you are looking for: Plain-text search, Regular Expression search, Approximate search, and Sound-alike search. Choose which search to use on the Options menu or the Main Window’s toolbar. What you enter in the Find edit box is interpreted differently by each of the four ways to find.

A Plain-text search interprets your entry in Find literally. That is, Finders Keepers searches for your entry exactly as it appears in Find.

A Regular Expression search interprets your entry in Find according to the rules of regular expressions. Therefore, some symbols in your entry, such as [] \ + * ?, have special effects during the Find operation. A regular expression is a formula for what you are looking for.

An Approximate search interprets your entry in Find as an approximation of what you are looking for, and allows errors, or discrepancies, in matching your entry. You set the number of allowable errors.

A Sound-alike search interprets your entry in Find as a representation of a spoken sound, and searches for what sounds like your entry.

The Find operation is affected by settings you make from the Options Menu or the toolbar, which are shown below.

How to Handle Results
The Results show up in the list box that occupies the lower part of the Main Window...

Controlling Results: You can control what shows up by making choices in Set Options - Results. Some of the most frequently changed of these options are available also in Common Options, accessed from Main Menu|View|Common Options.

Coloring Results: The Results may contain found words or expressions, replacement words or expressions, lines containing matches, file names, summary information, and so on. It is useful to set various colors for the different Results you have to look at to make scanning for information easier.

Actions on Results...

Right-click the mouse to get the Results Local Menu (shown below), which provides six ways to open a file selected in Results,

Double-click the mouse on a line to open the file containing that line. The file is opened with the Default Viewer, a Windows associated file, or the built-in Binary or Text Viewers, according to your choice in Set Options.

Main Menu | File selections enable you to copy, move, or delete files in Results.

Main Menu | Edit selections let you cut or copy lines in Results to the Windows clipboard, as well as search through the Results lines themselves, or send them to the Text Viewer.

How to Replace Text
Click on the “Replace” button to start a Replace operation.

NOTE: Enable Replace on the Options Menu must be check marked to enable Replace operations. When Replace is not enabled, the Replace button and edit box do not appear.

Control the actions of the Replace operation, for instance, confirmations of replacements, with settings in Set Options | Replace (shown later).

Regular expression replacements for advanced users: What you enter in the Replace edit box is interpreted literally by the Plain-text, Approximate, and Sound-alike searches. The Regular Expression search, however, interprets your entry in Replace according to the rules of replacement expressions if your entry contains a backslash (\) or an angstrom (&).



How to Use Indexes
Here, in Keepers | Indexes, you can view or launch files that contain indexed words you are looking for. Find indexed words by scanning the list box “Words” or by using Find, as explained below.

Open an index: Click on the “Open” button to open the index named in the window to the right of the button. Or double-click on an index name in the “Index” list box.

Find a word: Click on the “Find” button to find a word or expression in the currently open index. The search is based on what you entered in the edit box beside the “Find” button.

The list boxes are showing... Index This list box contains the names of indexes that you have created in Keepers | Make. To open an index, double-click on its name in the “Index” list box. When an index is opened, the “Contents” and “Words” list boxes display the index.

Contents Information about the index currently open is displayed in the “Contents” list box.

Words The “Words” list box contains all the words in the index. Click on an indexed word in this list box to see the names of indexed files that contain the word. The file names appear in the list box entitled “File Name | Matches | Folder”.

Found This list box contains the results of a Find operation, that is, a search of the indexed words. Click on an indexed word in this list box to see the names of indexed files that contain the word.

File Name The list box entitled “File Name | Matches | Folder” displays the names of files that contain the word that you clicked on in the “Words” or the “Found” list box. For each file name, the number of matches (occurrences of the indexed word) is shown, as well as the name of the folder that contains the file.

How to Make Indexes
Click on the “Make” button to create the index once your entries in Name, Folder, Folder(s), and File(s) are complete. Depending upon how many files are to be indexed, their sizes and contents, and of course, the speed of the machine, the indexing may take from a second to several minutes. The indexing is quite fast.

These are what you fill in...

Name In this edit box, enter a name for the index to be made.

Folder Enter in this edit box the name of the folder where you want the index itself to be placed.

Folder(s) Enter the names of the folders to include when the index is made.

File(s) Enter file names or file masks, e.g., *.doc, for the files to be indexed.

How to Update Indexes
Click the “Update” button to update the index named in the window to the right of the button. To choose an index to update, double-click one in the “Index” list box. The list boxes show...

Index This list box contains the names of indexes that you have created. Click on an index name to choose it for updating. Double-click on an index name to show its information in the “Contents” list box. Contents Information about the index selected in the “Index” list box is displayed in the “Contents” list box.

Update Information After an index is updated, this list box displays a list of the files indexed because they were changed or new. If there was nothing to update, a message to that effect appears. How to Manage Indexes Rename, move, or delete indexes you have created in Keepers | Indexes.

Skip Words: You can edit the “skipwords.txt” file, which determines what words are ignored during the making of an index.

How to Set Options for Find
These options control Find operations You choose how Finders Keepers treats files when it reads them for find, replace, and make-index operations.

Search inside zip files, and even zips within zips.

Select the number of errors to allow in an approximate search.

How to Set Options for Replace
These options control replace operations... You choose how often Finders Keepers asks you to confirm replacements during replace operations. These are the choices:

Every replacement  Confirm every single replacement in every file.

Only once for each file Confirm only the first replacement in a file. Other replacements in the same file, if any, will be made without further confirmation.

Only at start of Replace Confirm only that a Replace operation may begin. No replacement in individual files will be confirmed.

Never (not recommended) Do not confirm anything. This is not the way to live comfortably with computers. Back up your changed files... Just choose a backup folder and indicate in these options how you want duplicate backups handled. Disable the replace operations entirely... If you have new or risky users at your computer, you may want to password-disable the replace operations. You can do so--but remember or write down your password!

How to Set Options for Results
There are 4 categories of options for Results: Display, Viewers, Save, and Colors. Display - Control what shows up in Results... You choose what information shows up in Results after you search files or replace text. If you are writing a book, you probably want "Line number" and "Column number." If you are an advanced user looking for binary characters, you may want to show the "Offset in Hexadecimal" for each finding. In either case, you choose what shows up in Results after you search files or replace text. You can do specialty file searches that show only non-matching files, or do nothing but count files with found text, or list the names of found files but no other information. Viewers - Control the viewers for found files... A double-click on a line in Results can open the file referenced by the line. You choose what program the double-click calls to open the file. The choices are: the built-in text editor and binary viewer; or a default viewer, which you designate; or the associated file, that is, the program file that Windows® associates with your file's extension; or Windows® Quick View. NOTE that double-clicking a line in Results is not the only way to open files. Right-click on a line in results to pop up a menu with several choices on it for viewing or editing files. Save - Control how results are saved... You do not have to save any results: but you can save the results of your file searches or text replacements to either a log file or a results file you name and save to disk. Log files, if used, are saved automatically when a Find or Replace operation is performed. You can manually save search results to disk by selecting 'Save' or 'Save as' from the main menu.

You can choose to keep the list of files in Results for subsequent searches. This "persistent file list," if used, is saved in memory automatically, not on disk. The next Find or Replace operation will search files on this list. Thus you can search your results, and narrow down your searches repeatedly. Colors - Control the colors in results... Different colors may be used for various kinds of information shown in Results, such as Folders, File Names, Found words or expressions. Such color coding makes the Results easier to scan for information. How to Set Options to Exclude Files ]

These options control what files are excluded from searches... You can exclude files from further searching when enough matches have been found.

You can exclude files from searches by filtering for file dates or sizes.

You can choose particular file extensions, such as 'sys', to exclude from all Find and Replace operations all the time. Unless you are technically inclined (better yet, steeped), you do not ever need to search some kinds of files. Searching is always safe, but searching files that mean nothing to you would slow down operations. And replacing text in such files would be an adventure in computer Hades. You can skip file extensions for safety in Replace operations and speed in Find operations.

How to Set Options for the System
Control where Finders Keepers shows up...

There are several places in Windows from which you can start Finders Keepers. The most commonly used places are items on the Taskbar Start menu and a shortcut on the Desktop. You may establish these starting places by choosing options.

Add to Explorer’s Shortcut Menu...

Windows Explorer has shortcut menus that enable you to manipulate files or to invoke applications that operate on files. A shortcut, or context, menu for files pops up when you right-click on one or more selected files in the right pane of the Windows Explorer. The files shortcut menu contains such selections as “Open” and “Copy”. You can add the Finders Keepers selection “Find Words...” to the files shortcut menu. Then, when in the Windows Explorer, right-click on one or more selected files and choose “Find Words...” on the shortcut menu that pops up: Finders Keepers will make a file list from the selected files in Explorer. Find and Replace operations will use this file list.

Select Folder(s)
Click this button, which appears next to the Folder(s) edit box in the main window, to pop up a dialog with a tree view of the folders on your computer, from which you may choose the folders and subfolders that you want to search in Finders or index in Keepers.

How to use

Select one or more folders from the dialog’s left pane, entitled “Search folders,” to add to Folder(s). Select the desired folders by clicking on the check boxes next to them. As you add or remove check marks in the lists, your selections are created as text in the edit box at the bottom of the dialog. When you have finished selecting folders, click on the Apply button to put your selections into the Folder(s) edit box. If you want the dialog to close after applying your selections, click on the OK button instead.

Click on any folder image in the left pane to show that folder’s contents, its subfolders and files, in the right pane.

Replace Folder(s): Click on Replace Folder(s) if you want the selected folders to replace any text that is in the Folder(s) edit box.

Add to Folder(s): Click on “Add to Folder(s)” if you want the selected extensions to be added to any text already in the Folder(s) edit box.

Click on this button to clear all check marks and the edit box.

Click this button down to turn on the option to search, or index, all the subfolders under each folder that you select. When this button is up, the option is off. Clicking this button clears all your current check marks. NOTE that clicking this button changes the “Search Subfolders” option throughout the program.

Click on this button to move up one level from the folder displayed in the right pane of the dialog. For example, if the right pane is showing the contents of the folder “c:\mydocuments\myproject\myhelpfiles,” clicking this button will move up to, and show, the folder “c:\mydocuments\myproject.”

Legend: A check mark box may contain various symbols according to whether you have selected the folder, the subfolders beneath it, and so on. The possible symbols and their meanings are presented below.

The folder is not to be searched. No subfolders are to be searched.

The folder and everything that may be beneath it, whether a file or subfolder, is to be searched.

The folder is to be searched, but one or more subfolders have been unchecked and excluded from the search. The folder may have subfolders that have been check marked for searching.

Only the folder’s files are to be searched. If the folder has subfolders, they are not to be searched.

The folder’s own files are not to be searched, but one or more subfolders are to be searched.

Select File(s)
Click this button, which appears next to the File(s) edit box in the main window, to pop up a dialog with two lists of file extensions, from which you may choose the types of files that you want to search in Finders or index in Keepers. The two lists are labeled “Associated extensions” and “Custom extensions & file masks.”

Associated extensions

The list of associated file extensions is compiled automatically according to the associated extensions that Windows recognizes, that is, extensions that Windows associates with particular applications. Windows refers to files that have these extensions as “Associated Files.” Each entry in this list contains a file extension, or file mask, such as “*.doc”, an icon for the application (program) that handles files with that extension, a description of the file extension, and a check-mark box for selecting the extension.

Custom extensions & file masks

The list of custom extensions and file masks is a list that you make. Usually, you add a file extension to this list because it is not available in associated extensions, or it is, but you often use it in your searches and you wish to have it handy in your custom list. In addition to simple extensions, you may add to the custom list any file masks that you commonly search or index, for example, “chap??.doc”, “fk*.cpp”, “*.*”, “*.c??”, or “auntmaryletters*.txt”.

NOTE that some check mark boxes may be grayed and disabled. This occurs when the file extension has been excluded from searches by your settings in the section Always Skip Extensions under Options - Exclude.

How to use

Select one or more file extensions from the lists to add to File(s). Select the desired extensions by clicking on the check boxes next to them. As you add or remove check marks in the lists, your selections are created as text in the edit box at the bottom of the dialog. When you have finished selecting extensions and file masks, click on the Apply button to put your selections into the File(s) edit box. If you want the dialog to close after applying your selections, click on the OK button instead.

Include: The dialog has radio-button selections labeled “Include” and “Exclude.” Click on “Include” if you want to build in the edit box a string of selected extensions to be searched. The selections will be joined with a right angle bracket ( > ).

Exclude: Click on “Exclude” if you want to build a string of selected extensions to be excluded from the searching. Excluded selections will be joined with a left angle bracket ( < ).

Replace File(s): Click on “Replace File(s)” if you want the selected extensions to replace any text that is in the File(s) edit box.

Add to File(s): Click on “Add to File(s)” if you want the selected extensions to be added to any text already in the File(s) edit box.

Click on this button to clear all check marks and the edit box.

Click on this button to show or hide the following helpers.

Helpers for the Associated extensions

Add Below: Add the highlighted associated extensions to the list of custom extensions. You might want to do this for your most frequently used associated extensions.

Toggle All: Toggle all associated extensions on or off, that is, checked or unchecked.

Helpers for the Custom extensions

Edit box: This is the small edit box that appears to the right of the custom extensions. Type in any file extension or mask that you want to add to the custom list.

Click on this button to pop up a dialog for file selection. In the dialog, choose a file and click the Ok button: the chosen file will then appear in the small edit box above this button.

Click on this button to extract the file extension from the text in the small edit box above this button. For example, if “mydocuments.mdc” is in the edit box, clicking this button will produce “*.mdc” in the edit box.

Add: Click on this button to add the extension or file mask in the small edit box to the list of custom extensions. Remove: Click on this button to remove the highlighted item in the custom extensions. Toggle All: Toggle all custom extensions on or off, checked or unchecked.