budgie-remix

How to access file search?

Asked by Wilfredo

Heya,

I hope I'm missing something obvious and that this is a simple, dumb question, but after searching and poking around various sites and Budgie, I haven't found the answer.

In Settings, there's a Spotlight/Unity like preference pane to define the scope of file search: which directories and so on get searched. However, I'm not sure how to activate the feature searching through those directories. Super and Alt+F2 only access applications. Ideally, I want to replicate Unity Dash's feature, where I can press Super, start typing a file name, and press Enter to open that file (Spreadsheet, document, etc.).

I believe it's related to this question:
https://answers.launchpad.net/budgie-remix/+question/293427

And addressed by something like this:
https://projects.gnome.org/deskbar-applet/

I'd be delighted if PEBKAC, as that would be the easiest solution: I just haven't found something that, from the outset, seems to already be there.

Anyway, thanks for the great, beautiful distro!

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fossfreedom (fossfreedom) said : 		#1

file-search I'm aware has been mooted upstream as a future enhancement - nothing currently built in.

Obviously this will need an enterprising and awesome dev type person to get involved and help out if this is to be made available quickly.

Until then, will need to look at third-party solutions such as this http://www.fsearch.org/

The text in that webpage mentioned these as other possible solutions - MATE Search Tool (formerly GNOME Search Tool), Recoll, Krusader (locate based search), SpaceFM File Search, Nautilus, ANGRYsearch, Catfish

synapse? possibly - think you also need to install locate to make it work.

Anyway - let us know your thoughts - very interested in this. Good question +1

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Wilfredo (wil-contreras) said : 		#2

Hey, thanks for the reply--I'm back into my Budgie setup, so I can add more details.

So, in Settings, there's a Search option, which allows to search Files, Photos, etc. Is that just cosmetic?

Also, I re-watched the Budgie video on the home page (I knew I wasn't imagining things): at the 33 second mark, they open what I'm looking for:

https://youtu.be/VS7V6jEfJn0?t=33

I mean, it looks like the search referenced in the System Settings.

Having said that, how can I disable the default Super binding? I hope to bind FSearch (or Synapse) to Super (I looked through Keyboard Shortcuts, but I don't recall seeing anything---where could that be?)

Thanks!

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fossfreedom (fossfreedom) said : 		#3

The 33 second mark thing is launched via ALT+F2 - it is a keyboard shortcut to search for applications.

Not sure with the settings option - probably sets the defaults for nautilus (files) searching.

Usually if you define a custom keyboard shortcut, it recognises a potential clash and disables the clash capability.

What is the keyboard shortcut you want to use?

Revision history for this message
Wilfredo (wil-contreras) said : 		#4

Oh that's right---I had found that when I first posted, just forgot. Isn't
redundant, though? As in, both Super and Alt+F2 provide essentially the
same functionality: open a thing where I can start typing app names and
launch them.

I want to use Super to launch Synapse or FSearch (still trying both out),
but so far, the top-left menu keeps popping up.

On Wed, Dec 14, 2016 at 2:38 AM fossfreedom <
<email address hidden>> wrote:

> Your question #404662 on budgie-remix changed:
> https://answers.launchpad.net/budgie-remix/+question/404662
>
> fossfreedom posted a new comment:
> The 33 second mark thing is launched via ALT+F2 - it is a keyboard
> shortcut to search for applications.
>
> Not sure with the settings option - probably sets the defaults for
> nautilus (files) searching.
>
> Usually if you define a custom keyboard shortcut, it recognises a
> potential clash and disables the clash capability.
>
> What is the keyboard shortcut you want to use?
>
> --
> You received this question notification because you asked the question.
>

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Launchpad Janitor (janitor) said : 		#5

This question was expired because it remained in the 'Open' state without activity for the last 15 days.

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Wilfredo (wil-contreras) said : 		#6

So, after testing Synapse and FSearch, they're good, but neither as smooth or clean as Unity's Dash: not sure what goes on in the background, but Dash always seems to find exactly what I'm looking for.

I believe it has some sort of Relevance algorithm that returns results based on date modified or something like that, whereas with Synapse/FSearch, I found my searches returned more hits, but those extra hits were noise, since I had to dig through those to get what I actually wanted.

In short, if Budgie would implement its own "universal launcher" (not sure if that's the right term), I think it's worth looking at how Dash does it, since it's no longer enough to just return a bunch of results (which has its usefulness too): they also need to be relevant.