INTRODUCTION

searchMonkey is a GTK+ application designed to replace the find/grep command line tools. The aim of this utility it to provide fast, slick text search ability to the GTK community.

The User Interface

This section describes every button, window, table and what it shows or does.

File Menu

New                    

Starts a brand new search (losing previous search history).

Open Criteria

Opens a previously saved search criteria.

Close

Close a child criteria window, but not the main application.

Save Criteria           

Saves a search criteria (excluding the results).
Save Criteria As         As Save Criteria, but brings up a save-as dialog.

Save Results            

Saves the results to a custom XML file. Only available
when search complete.

Print                   

Print the search results in a well formatted way.

Print Preview           

Brings up a display of what would have been printed.

Print Setup             

Brings up the system's printer setup dialog.

Edit Menu

Word Wrap      

When selected, allow the results text to wrap instead of keeping to
strict lines.

Set Font        

Brings up a font dialog to adjust the results window base font.

Set Color       

Brings up a color selection dialog to adjust the highlight colour for
the match results.

Clear History   

Remove search history from drop down criteria.

Select All      

Selects all file name matches in the left results pane.

Delete  

Deletes the selected file name(s) forever (once confirmed).

Copy    

Copies the selected file name(s) to clipboard.

View Menu

Toolbar        

If selected, the tool bar is shown.

Status Bar      

If selected, the status bar is shown.

Sort by         

Within sub-menu, choose sort criteria e.g. file name, file size,
modified date.

Search Menu

Start  

Starts the search.

Stop    

Stops the search. Enabled when search is running.

One phase searching     

Allows content matches to be displayed immediately, instead of waiting
for all files to be found.

Configuration   

Brings up application configuration dialog.    

Test Menu

Reg. Expression        

Allows a regular expression to be entered, along with sample text as a
way of checking that your expression returns the expected results.

Window Menu     

SearchXX       

Allows quick switching between open search
criteria/results windows.

Help Menu       

Description

User Guide      

Brings up this web address from your default browser

Support         

Brings up the searchMonkey support page from
Sourceforge

About   

Brings up a dialog showing version number, license, and author's
email.

The Toolbar

Can be hidden from the main-menu (view->toolbar).

New     

Starts a brand new search (losing previous search history).

Open    

Opens a previously saved search criteria.

Save    

Saves a search criteria (excluding the results).

Save Results    

Saves the results to a custom XML file. Only available when search
complete.

Play    

Start the search.

Stop    

Stop the search. Only available when search in progress.

Print   

Print the search results in a well formatted way.

Forums  

Starts a new browser instance to the searchMonkey Forums

The Advanced Search Tab

Displayed when Expert User is enabled.

File Name       

Type a new regular expression for file name searching.

Containing Text         

Type a new regular expression for (text-only) contents
searching. Disable this field with check button.

Expr. Wizard    

Brings up a regular expression helper dialog. Makes typing new regular
expressions easier.

Look In         

Type a new starting location for search. Disable recurse directories
with check button.

Open/Multi      

Brings up a folder search dialog. Multi allows multiple folders to be
selected for expert searches.

More/Less Than  

Type a file size (in KBytes) to narrow searches to files less-than
and/or more-than specified size.

More/Less Than  

Type a date expression (e.g. dd/mm/yyyy or dd mmm
yyyy) to narrow searches to files modified before and/or after specified date.

The Options Tab

Available at all times from the main screen.

Specifies Not Expression        

Inverts the search i.e. finds
everything except your regular expression. Status bar shows [INV] to indicate inverted.

Match case      

When disabled allows case insensitive searching of
file names and/or content.

Regular Expression

When selected allows regular expressions to be used.

DOS Expression  

When selected allows file names to be found using
DOS/Glob style pattern matching i.e. * and ?.

Open/Multi      

Brings up a folder search dialog. Multi allows
multiple folders to be selected for expert searches.

More/Less Than  

Type a file size (in KBytes) to narrow searches to
files less-than and/or more-than specified size.

More/Less Than  

Type a date expression (e.g. dd/mm/yyyy or dd mmm
yyyy) to narrow searches to files modified before and/or after specified date.

File Name Results

This pane is only filled when matches are found. Left clicking on a match will bring up content matches (displayed in the Context Results pane, if any), and right-clicking the row will bring up a sub-menu.

Right Click Menu

Open   

Opens the file name in your preferred text editor. See configuration.

Copy    

Copies the full file name into the clipboard for use elsewhere.

Delete  

Deletes the selected file forever, once confirmed.

Explore         

Opens your preferred file browser that contains the selected file

Context Results

This pane is only filled when text matches are found, and a result has been selected.

The line that matches the search expression will be shown in full, and the actual match text will be highlighted. Once text has been selected with the left-button, the right button will allow copy options, or select-all to be performed on the text. These allow text to be copied from the results window, and pasted elsewhere.

Advanced File Name and/or Contents Searching

To find files, using regular expressions can be achieved by filling out the File Name and Look In boxes. The starting file name can be typed, copied or selected by using the Open dialog. To search a single folder, uncheck the Search Subfolders box.

If you want to find a specific regular expression within a text file, then fill out the Containing Text box with a regular expression. Note: significantly less files are shown when Containing Text is added because binary files are skipped.

For a more specific search, add in min/max file size, and the after/before modified date (if known).

Once ready, press Play to start the search process.

Results (if any) immediately start appearing in the File name results table, and once complete the total number of matches is shown in the status bar

Status Bar

Describes what is currently going on.

    * Phase 1 searching is the gathering of files that match the filename, size and modified date criteria.

    * Phase 2 searching is the internal checking of text files to match the search strings.

    * Upon completion, the number of hits is displayed, along with whether this was an inverse filename search [inv] or [cancelled] by the user

Tips and Tricks

This section gives examples of some cool things to do with searchMonkey.

Regular Expressions

Some examples of regular expressions are given here:

(\.[ch])$

Finds all of the C source code, plus headers.

^(make)

Finds every make file instance.

^(void function_name)(;)$

Finds a function declaration, as opposed to the definition

\([a-zA-Z0-9\s]+\)

Highlights all text within brackets

SearchMonkey User Guide Online

To view the same guide in HTML please visit <http://searchmonkey.sourceforge.net/index.php/SearchMonkey_User_Guide>

AUTHOR

This manual page was written by Varun Hiremath <[email protected]>, for the Debian project (but may be used by others).