[ANN] HoudahSpot 2.5 BETA

Firstly thanks for the new update. Adding thumbnail view is a very big thing for me as I work with images. I’d stopped using HoudahSpot for a while as it wasn’t much use to me in searching images, but now it’s become VERY useful 🙂

Would it be possible to make saved searches & templates remember which view was selected? (i.e. If I create a template & save it set with the thumbnail view it would open up set with thumbnail view again. If I saved a search set with Cover Flow view it would start a search with list view again etc.)

Is it possible to change view from list to thumbnail etc. with keyboard shortcuts? If not could this be added? 🙂

Selecting only Any text in the BlitzSearch opens a window but doesn’t search for anything for me. The word I typed in the BlitzSearch window doesn’t appear anywhere in the HoudahSpot search window. (Works fine if I type something in the any text box in the HoudahSpot window though.)

I can’t see or select the Any Text attribute if I open existing/older searches, even if I click on Other to look for it there. It only seems to show up if I create a new search.

Lastly I guess this is a long shot 🙂 But is there any chance of adding OpenMeta tags to the BlitzSearch menu, so you could search only those tags. This would be very useful to people I think now that OpenMeta tagging (& searching) is becoming very popular.

Thanks a lot, that was quick 🙂

One thing that appears to be missing from the latest betas is the rotating progress indicator when a search has been started. I found it quite useful before to let me know if the app was working away when searching. Has this been removed?

I'll look forward to more OpenMeta support in the future. Thanks again.

Is it? OK, no problem.

Cool, thanks 🙂

Thanks again.
Could you post release notes/changes for the new releases? (To let us know what's been fixed or added 🙂 )

A formidable progress! Leap is in real danger 😉

Quick report on few bugs:
- Right arrow opens selected file and jumps to first file
- Contextual menu in Grid view/CoverFlow
- Resizing grid (thumbnail) size
- Keep chosen View Results (List, Grid, CoverFlow)
- When Results view is installed in Toolbar the HS must be relaunched to make it work.
- QuickLook on multiple selected files works only via shortcut but not with SPACE.

Wishlist:
- CoverFlow above/below List view
- AppleScript support
- OM tagging files
- Sort By ascending/descending in Grid/CoverFlow view

Rgds
Edo

Thanks.

And yea, I'd like to be able to change the sort order (ascending/descending) in thumbnail & CoverFlow view (along with being able to add tags to files).

- Sort By ascending/descending in Grid/CoverFlow view
All three views respect the same sort order

In list view you can click on the titles at the top to alter sorting by ascending or descending, but in thumbnail & Cover Flow views you can't do this.
It would be helpful if there were options for these in View > Sort By in the menu bar.

Really? Cool, thanks.
I guess it would be more intuitive if the text was actually in the menu 🙂

Latest version Beta 8 gets frozen (Not Responding) when running the template "Recent Files".

Note: In order to keep the selected View (Results) option you must re-save the template. Intended feature?

Rgds
Edo

Wow, you're really working fast on these 🙂

Once thing I keep having to do when creating and modifying searches is that I have to keep adding search attributes that I use often from the 'Other..' section. Would it be possible to add a checkbox next to the items so that they will always appear in the future like you can do in Finder? (see screenshot)

[image on www.iconaholic.com]

Member #43,

AFAIK the search items from the "Other..." section are saved in search option list provided they were previously added to some template...

Rgds
Edo

Edo,

Are they? Thanks for letting me know. I've been altering my older saved searches recently and not creating new ones, so didn't notice.

(I also get the problem with the recent files search, but see Pierre has confirmed it.)

OK, thanks for letting me know

A problem (bug?):
I cannot add/insert a Query Group at the bottom or in the middle of Query list ("What..."). Seems possible only when building a query list from the scratch.
Although it is possible to drag a "Criterion" within the list it doesn't work for the "Group". Any solution?

Edit: Actually I'd like to drag only the "NONE" query line, not the whole Group.

Rgds
Edo

A bug:
When using "Size" search criteria HS starts searching and says "1000 file found..." (limit) for short time and then displays only 3 files and get frozen...

Rgds
Edo

Pierre,

Thanks for the "Group" query tips 🙂
I couldn't find that hidden gems.

Rgds
Edo

Bugs in Beta 8:

- Switching Views keep selected file visible (focused) in browser window in List and CoverFlow view but not in Grid view. This happens when search resulted with more files than visible in browser.

- When filtering results the number of found files in browser titlebar does not update.

Rgds
Edo

Download link to Beta 9 does not work!

Rgds
Edo

Thanks 🙂

Yea, I see. It is OK now 😉
What's been changed from the last release?

Rgds
Edo

1) Filtering the results still doesn't update the number of found files in titlebar.
I may understand that you want to show/keep the original number of found files. Still I would suggest you to implement the same feature as in FileSpot - to show like this:
"4 of 34 items shown"

2) After the browser window is populated with items the first item is initially selected with gray cloud and you can move only right/left using the up/down arrow. First item should be fully selected (with blue cloud) or nothing should be selected at all until the keys are used (or mouse), "down" to select the first and "up" to select the last item.

3) I would like to see the icon and file name of the selected file in the top toolbar instead of (or along with) the used template name only.

Rgds
Edo

When trying to make multiple selection (cmd+click) of items in the browser it frequently (not always) happens that selection is lost in the process.

Rgds
Edo

I noticed that Select All selects the top result item. Clicking Select All again (or ⌘-A) successfully selects all (the 2nd time).
Do you get the same thing, or is that only for me?

Member #43,

Strange! I get them all at once.

Rgds
Edo

Edo,
Maybe just me then 😀

I might have mentioned this before, but would it be possible to make the different areas on the left hand side (What, Where, Exclude etc.) resizable? 🙂
I often find that I have plenty of room in the 'What' section, but have to scroll down in the 'Where' section, which makes it quite awkward (as you can see in the screenshot).

[image on www.iconaholic.com]

If you could grab the title area & drag it up or down it would makes things much easier.

And / or another suggestion would be to be able to expand of collapse parts in the 'What' section. For example you could have those 'expand & collapse triangles' next to the 'ANY of the following is true', 'NONE of the following is true' etc. sections to allow you so show or hide them for editing.

Also please consider the option to hide the whole Query window/side. Would be very useful.

Rgds
Edo

Yea, being able to slide the query window out of the way completely would be good.

It makes sense as after creating saved searches they're like Finder's smart folders, where you just want to open them to find search results without changing the search attributes.

Maybe in 2.6? 🙂

Thanks

Pierre,

Link to Beta 9 is given instead!?!

Rgds
Edo

Shown number of filtered items not fixed as yet?

Rgds
Edo

Hi, after installing beta 10 and a restart I get the following behaviour:

If open HS beta 10: opens, but does not open a window (Search template). Hitting cmd+n I get no window/new search. Selecting "new search" nothing happens (menu-item flashes but that is besides the point). Selecting an item from "recent searches" doesn't open the respective item.

Could find no log-file.

Rolf

When I tried to update to 2.5 from b11, I got a message about incorrect signing.

Thanks

The more I think about it the more I like Member #238's suggestion of being able to show and hide the search/query section on the left hand side.

I think once you've created your search and saved it you'd want to show the files from the search often, but not see the search attributes most of the time 🙂