Indirect search with external Program/Script(simple plugin/makro)

[FrankM]

Since Everything needs to be running why not use it as user interface.

Following situation:
I got a database which stores additional information to certain files, for easier explaining I call them Tags.
These tags are not directly deductable from the file name or file system properties. Files can be stored at separate places, but have the same (folder-)name.
So to find all folders containing files with certain tags, the user puts in a few keywords in my custom application, which calls the api of everything and returns the list of files/folders.
If I wanted to present the whole power of Everything to refine these results it would be recreating Everything.

So the following idea came to mind:

Custom Keywords which start a script or program for getting an indirect value.

The Everything prompt could look like this:

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*#Custom1:Tag1:Tag2#*.pdf

A possible config file for this "plugin" could look like this:

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[CustomPlugin]
Keyword=Custom1
ParameterCount:2
Start=C:\Programs\TagManager.exe %1 %2

The Program would return a string value to stdout which in turn would be the filter input for the normal Everything search.
So the external program/Script is started once in the background with the parameters and the return value would be used as filter for search.
The prompt from above:

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*#Custom1:Tag1:Tag2#*.pdf

Everything uses this internally for searching

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*ResponseValueFromExternalProgram*.pdf

One could think one step ahead and these returned values could be special Everything-keywords, too(like content:test, or an regex), just crazy thinking here..

Despite the one program call it would still be fast enough.

What do you think?

[therube]

Start=C:\Programs\TagManager.exe %1 %2

You can certainly do that part in Everything 1.5 alpha, with custom_open_command##.

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custom_open_command01=$exec("c:\bin\xxhash.bat" %*)
custom_open_command02=$exec("C:\WLIB\PLAYERS\MPV.NET\mpvnet.exe" %*)
custom_open_command03=$exec("C:\BIN\i_view32.exe" %* /thumbs)
custom_open_command04=$exec("C:\BIN\HEX.exe" %*)

Likewise, you can associate hotkeys to those actions,

Options | General | Keyboard -> File | Custom Open #

.

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file_custom_open_1_keys=8792
file_custom_open_2_keys=8781
file_custom_open_3_keys=8777
file_custom_open_4_keys=8776

(The rest, I'm unsure.)

[FrankM]

Yeah that's a nice feature, but will present the user with a 2nd program, which is what i want to prevent.
My basic solution of an external program using the SDK (1.4) is already done(thx to the sdk examples it was fast and easy to create).

The 2nd best idea would be having the option to make the everything search window visible by an external program.
So the user could refine the search with all the power of Everything.
Still 2 visible Programs needed