File Searching Blues

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Note: This message is from the outliners.com archive kindly provided by Dave Winer.

Outliners.com Message ID: 1691

Posted by ureadit
2003-09-15 19:35:03

All,

I expect that, like me, some of you use text searching software (MS or third-party) to search through multiple files. Recently, many PIMs have incorporated file compression to reduce the size of files, particularly if they contain graphics.

As I just discovered, even if a search engine can read zipped files, none that I am aware of can read automatically compressed PIM files. Even if you use only one PIM, its built-in search function cannot simultaneously search multiple files. (InfoSelect may be an exception.) This is a disaster for those of us who have a LOT of data in MANY files.

The only solution I can think of is for there to become some software standardization. In particular, if vendors of software used for text information storage could create dll, plug-in files that would “tell” search programs how to read their compressed files, and if file search vendors would modify their software to accept such plug-ins, then the problem would be solved.

Anyway, I intend to inform all of my search and PIM software vendors of this problem and my potential “solution.” But first, I thought I’d give you an opportunity to comment and make suggestions—please!

Thanks,

-Steve C.

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