TraX  


[i] Overview [ii] Find In [iii] The Options Panel
[iv] Putting together the criteria [v] Searching by Name [vi] Searching by Extension
[vii] Searching by Size [viii] Searching by Modified [ix] Searching by Created
[x] Searching by Kind [xi] Searching by Contains [xii] Using conjunctions and grouping

Overview

TraX is a utility to find files on any mounted disk. It bares some resemblence the Find File tool on MacOS (but with much more power, to match the more powerful OS it runs on)
The design of TraX is based upon the find utility from UNIX
*. It uses "predicates" to build up quite powerful expressions that give you great flexibilty over the files you search for.
For example you could search for That's a fairly complex search task, but TraX can do it all within a simple GUI (of course, you need a pretty high resolution to fit it on one screen.)

If all this seems a bit too complicated, you might like to look at FastTraX.


Find In

When you open TraX, the top of the window will display a popup menu with the label "Find In Folder". If you launch TraX with a specific folder (either by using "Open With...", or by dragging a folder onto the TraX icon) then this popup will start in that folder. Otherwise it will start with the root ("/") directory.
Selecting this menu will bring up a list of folders to choose from, or you can choose your own.
At the top of the menu is the root folder, and all your mounted disks. If the only disk you have mounted is your main BeOS disk, then this will be labeled "/boot/" and no other disks will be visible. If you have any other mounted disks (of any filesystem type) they will also be visible.
Below the disks are a number of important folders: Below this is the "other..." option. Selecting this will bring up an Open window to allow you to select any other folder you wish.


The Options Panel

At the bottom of the TraX window is a panel with a few buttons and an edit box.
This is the options panel for your search.

The + and - buttons
These buttons add and remove panels from the Window.
Adding a new panel allows you to add more criteria to your search. See
Putting together the criteria
Click the + button to add a panel at the bottom of the criteria. Click the - button to remove the bottom criteria panel.

Maximum Subfolder Depth
This field has both a check box, and an edit box.
If the check box is marked when you perform your search (ie click the Find button), then TraX will only search to the depth specified in the edit box. eg, Place a '0' in the edit box, and TraX will only search the files in the folder you specified (ie no subdirectories) *.

The Find Button
Click here to start the find.
The current version of the find library TraX uses can only perform one search at a time. Therefore, the Find button will be disabled while a search is underway.


Putting together the criteria

TraX is designed to allow you to easily design complex search expressions. Although you can use TraX for simple searches, it excels at performing advanced searches quickly and easily.
TraX is based around "predicates" and "conjunctions" (with negations and grouping thrown in).
A predicate is an expression like "size less than 10 kB" or "name contains 'txt'"
A conjunction is something that joins two predicates together ("or" , "and")
Selecting a conjunction, allows you to specify whether you wish to find only those files which match all your predicates, or all files that match at least one of your prdicates. Of course, by using grouping and conjunctions together, you can specify that some predicates must all be met, while only one of another set need be met. TraX gives you this flexibility.
TraX uses brackets "(" and ")" to group sets of predicates and conjunctions together. So the expression:
  (
       Name begins with Be
  or   Name begins with Mac
  )
  and  Name ends with OS
finds "BeOS" and "MacOS" and "Better OS" but not "PIOS" , "Beep" or "The BeOS"
TraX also has the ability to negate a predicate so
         Name begins with Be
 and not Name ends with OS
will find "BeBox" but not "BeOS"
You can also negate groups thus
  not (
          Extension is txt
      or  Extension is doc
      )
is the same as
          Extension isn't txt
     and  Extension isn't doc
that is, it finds all files except those ending in .txt or .doc
For info on how to put these expression into TraX, see
Using conjunctions and grouping
The important thing to realise at this point is that TraX splits its window into these components as shown below:


Due to serious time contraints, I have been unable to complete this set of documentation.
If you require assistance, feel free to mail me at: zodsoft@kagi.com
If anyone is willing to complete the documentation, please feel free to do so, and forward to me at the above address.

Thankyou, Tim Vernum.


See Also


Footnotes

"find utility from UNIX"
Actually it's based on GNU find which has more options than plain old find, so you could say it's based on find from "Not Unix".

Maxdepth
Users of find should note that this behaviour is slightly different to that displayed by GNU find. Find treats -maxdepth 0 to mean that only the root of the search should be considered, and -maxdepth 1 will search for entries within the folders in the path-list. ie, In find, maxdepth refers to the depth of the leaf being considered, while in TraX it refers to the depth of the parent of that leaf.


Documentation Copyright (C) 1999, Tim Vernum.
Images Copyright (C) 1999, with the exception of the User and Developer Icons, Copyright Be Inc.
All rights reserved.

Tim Vernum      3rd July 1999