Q: Actual difference between "Quick Search" and "Find Files"

[autocart]

Hi Don, Hi everybody,

"Quick Search" and "Find Files" are 2 seperate chapters in the help file.
Regarding the GUI, of course, the difference in handling is not hard to see (QS emphasizing the AB and FF having its input form in the info panel), although that seems to have gotten interwoven (e.g. regarding certain prefixes).

I personally always was wondering what the actual difference between "Quick Search" and "Find Files" is.
I mean, why 2 "methods" for finding files? Why 2 different names? Why 2 seperate chapters in the help file?
Why are the results portrayed in different styles (e.g. quick search info bar)?
What is the underlying, fundumental reason for this? What is the benefit? Why have 2 different "concepts" for the same thing?
Both do the same thing, should be reaching the same results, do they not?

I understand that one might want to have different ways for user-input (GUI form, AB, load predefined search, user-button, catalog, scripting-interface in general, ...) but for that it should preferably still be *one* method for searching and findig files with its various interfaces for the user, should it not? However, in XY "Quick Search" and "Find Files" are presented as 2 fundamentally different methods and I do not understand why. It is very confusing to say the least. Especially for new users, I recon, but it still keeps making me unhappy not understanding it.

Is somebody able to answer this question: What is the *real* difference and why is it necassary?
Please.
If not, why not reconcile these 2 "methods" and make only one out of it?

Thx a million, Regards

[TheQwerty]

I think quite a bit of it has to deal with the age and history of the features.

Find Files was part of TrackerV3 and developed prior to 2000 - making it older than the XYplorer name.
It wasn't until v4.50.0060 in 2006 that Don introduced what is now "Quick Search", but was back then "Address Bar Search":

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v4.50.0060 - 2006-04-01 11:56
. . .
  +++ Address Bar Search: Now you can enter search patterns directly 
      into the Address Bar and the GoTo boxes: simply put "?" between 
      location and pattern.
      There are interesting possibilities, for example:
        C:\WINDOWS\?*.log   = Find all LOGs in C:\WINDOWS\
        Desktop?*.bmp       = Find all BMPs in Desktop
        Desktop?            = Find all items in Desktop (!)
        ?                   = Find all items in current folder (!)
        ?*.txt              = Find all TXT files in current folder (!)
      It also works with Boolean and RegExp patterns, for example:
        Desktop?>.*(\.bmp|\.jpg)$ = Find all BMPs and JPGs in Desktop
        Desktop?:*.jpg | *.bmp    = Find all BMPs and JPGs in Desktop
        ?:!#                      = Find all items with no number in the 
                                    name in current folder :)
      Doing an Address Bar search will set the Name and Location fields 
      on the Find Files tab. All other current find settings remain as 
      they are but are *NOT* applied to the search (exceptions: Include 
      subfolders and Follow Folder links)! So, the Address Bar search is 
      a way to quickly get all the name hits unfiltered without caring 
      about the current state of all the other Find Files settings, and 
      without having to open the Find Files tab resp. Info Panel.

The way I read the notes is that one of the draws of this was that it made it possible to perform a name-based search without using or needing to change the configuration of the Find Files tab.

In v4.50.0077 Don flirted with changing the name to "Name Search", but when officially released later that same day in v4.60.0000 it was still referred to as "Address Bar Search".

In v5.10.0028 a wedge was hammered in between the features to separate them further:

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v5.10.0028 - 2006-09-09 14:07
. . .
    * Name Searches are now completely detached from the Find Files 
      settings (Filter tabs) -- neither write nor read them. Also, the 
      name search pattern is now displayed in the main window title bar, 
      and in the Address Bar, and in the tabs' tooltips. And, name 
      searches are remembered between sessions and per-tab.

In v5.10.0032 the address bar gained "Quick Visual Filters" and I suppose Don liked the branding enough that he decided to use it for address bar searching as well:

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v5.10.0032 - 2006-09-14 11:45
  +++ Now you can set a Visual Filter directly through the Address Bar, 
      the Catalog, the Favorites etc. This means you can set a new path 
      and a new filter at the same time! For example:
        Desktop|*.jpg;*.png   = browse to Desktop and show only *.jpg 
                                and *.png files
      The crucial operator here is the "|"-char (pipe). These are the 
      general syntax options (Path can be slashed or not):
        Path|a*   = set filter "a*" to Path
        Path|     = remove any filters from Path
        |a*       = set filter "a*" to current Path
        |         = remove any filters from current Path
      The filter will be added to the top of the Visual Filter MRU (most 
      recently used) list, so it will be available for toggling on/off 
      (Ctrl+Shift+J).
      These "Quick Visual Filters" can not be combined with "Quick 
      Searches" (aka "Name Searches", using the "?" operator), as 
      generally Searches cannot be visually filtered (it would mean 
      filtering a filter...).
      NOTE: I had to do some complex deep level restructuring to get 
      this thing working smoothly (hence the longish time it took). So 
      you might make a backup of the current version before upgrading...

Though he may have soon after realized "Quick Search" could open a can of worms and the next day gave the feature an acronym of QNS: Quick Name Search. This also started the usage of using Quick as a description for extending the address bar's functionality beyond just entering locations.

There was a bout of amnesia in May of 2008, when v7.10.0019 referred to it as Quick Search again:

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v7.10.0019 - 2008-05-25 08:29
. . .
    * Catalog: Now you can drop stuff on locations with a Quick Search 
      (QS) attached. The QS is ignored in this case.

And again a few months later:

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v7.60.0022 - 2008-09-21 21:48
    + Tweak: Getting tired of typing "::" into the Address Bar when 
      debugging script lines I added this little tweak:
        [Settings]
        ScriptSmartDetect=1
      Whenever the Address Bar content matches this:
        (not a full path) AND (has ; anywhere) AND
        (1st char != ?) AND (1st char != |)
      it is interpreted as script, not as location. This allows Quick 
      Searches like ?gif;png and Visual Filters like |gif;png, and 
      recognizes scripts even with line-end comments, like:
        echo ("0" > "")?"True":"False"; //True
      Works for me.

Then it was not as quick :

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v7.80.0020 - 2008-11-22 17:40
  +++ Name Search (aka Quick Search): Now multiple locations are 
      supported! They have to be separated by ";" (NOT "|" because this 
      would be confused with a Visual Filter).
      E.g., you may paste a line like this into the Address Bar:
        E:\XY\;C:\Temp\;D:\Backup\?*.gif
      The three folders E:\XY\, C:\Temp\, and D:\Backup\ will be 
      searched for GIF files.
      - The ";" may be surrounded by any number of blanks. Built-in 
        smartness will recognize a ";" that's not a separator but part 
        of a folder name.
      - Multi-Location Name Searches are remembered in tabs and across 
        sessions.
      - As always with Name Searches, the settings in the Find Tab are 
        not touched.

As you can see again a big selling point of this feature is that it is separate from the Find Files tab, even to the point of removing caching for quick searches:

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v8.20.0021 - 2009-08-25 15:25
    ! Search Results Caching: Quick Name Searches were cached as well, 
      which lead to inconsistencies between search results and settings 
      on Find Files tab. Fixed: Quick Name Searches are not cached 
      anymore.

This whole time the other big difference in functionality was that Quick Name Searches only ever performed NAME searches, but that changed in late 2009:

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v8.60.0106 - 2009-11-16 21:07
  +++ Find Files: Now you can directly search for Tags and Comments!
      Simply prefix "tag:" or "comment:" (case does not matter) to the 
      search term in the name field, and the whole term is matched 
      against the tag respectively comment of each file instead of 
      against the name.
      All other things work as usual, including Boolean and RegExp 
      search.
. . .
      Note that also Quick Name Search supports the new syntax, for 
      example:
        E:\Test\?tag:"blue";"red"
  +++ Find Files: Now you can directly search for the extended 
      properties of file items, as also known from the File Info Tips. 
      Their names and indices vary strongly between different Windows 
      versions. A list is available in Configuration | File Info Tips.
      The syntax is like above with "tag:" or "comment:", only with yet 
      another field for the actual property. To identify properties by 
      their index prefix "#" to the number.

v9.00.0210, introduced the type dropdown to Find Files, and here the courtesy of extending both wavers slightly:

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v9.00.0210 - 2010-05-02 16:08
  +++ Find By Type: Added a little dropdown to the Find Files tab under 
      Name & Location, where you can select a general file type to 
      narrow down the search results to only that type of files.
. . .     
      Future
      - It is planned to make all Named Visual Filters available as 
        User-Defined Type Filters!
      - Type filters might be added to the Quick Search syntax.

Ugh.. we're only up to 2010!

Thankfully, 2011 was a rather quiet year, but it didn't last long as Don added Multi-Field Search to both - making "Quick Name Search" an even less appropriate name:

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v10.80.0304 - 2012-02-14 20:50
  +++ Find Files: Added Multi Field Search (MFS). Planned for years, 
      finally implemented. A BIG feature, like adding a new dimension 
      to search.
      Multi Field Search means: In a Boolean search you can mix 
      different fields, e.g. find all images with 1024 x 768 pixels AND 
      labeled "Red" AND having "2012" in the name.
. . .        
      Notes
      ~~~~~~
      - Of course, MFS also works in Quick Searches which makes it 
        available for Address Bar, Catalog, Favorites, User Buttons, 
        Scripting etc. Remember that the Boolean marker ":" has to be 
        prefixed, e.g.:
          ?:tags:dogs and name:t*

Throughout all of this (or going back to v8.70.0011) the documentation was split but not as it is today. Find Files had its own section for years, however QNS was actually not considered a standalone feature, but rather just functionality of the Address Bar. This changed though in 2012:

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v10.90.0407 - 2012-04-19 12:16
  +++ Added Quick Name Search, a very simple interface to finding files 
      by their name. The new command "Quick Name Search..." is found at 
      the bottom of menu Edit.
      The obvious idea is to offer an ultra-smooth access to the most 
      common find task: the search by filename. No more need to open the 
      Info Panel, select the Find Files tab, reset any previous filters, 
      enter a pattern, and press Find Now. Instead you completely bypass 
      the Find Files tab leaving its current settings unused and 
      unchanged.
      Notes:
      - Quick Name Searches are by default recursive. The "/r" switch is 
        auto-appended to the pattern, unless the pattern already 
        features any switch.
      - Quick Name Searches always search the current location (as shown 
        in the Title Bar, the Address Bar, and in the unlocked Tree).
      - The last 64 patterns are stored in an MRU list. They are 
        remembered across sessions if "Configuration | Startup & Exit | 
        Remember most-recently-used lists" is ticked and "Find Files 
        Patterns and Locations" is ticked in the Apply list.
        The MRU list can be edited in List Management.
      - Quick Name Searches are displayed in the Address Bar, but not 
        added to the Address Bar MRU (the dropdown list).      
      - Quick Name Search also supports more complex patterns like 
        Boolean terms, RegExp, and Multi Field Search. Simply everything 
        that's supported in the Address Bar right of the "?", the marker 
        for searches through the Address Bar.
      - The term and concept of "Quick Name Search" (also called "Quick 
        Search") already exists since long in XYplorer, but only it got 
        its own interface.
      - The default keyboard shortcut is Alt+F3.
    + Toolbar: Added button "Quick Name Search". Credits for the icon go 
      to http://www.icojam.com/ (icojoy iconset)

Then there's a flurry of activity during the build up to v11.

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v10.90.0415 - 2012-04-23 21:46
    * Quick Name Search: Now the search results of a Quick Name Search 
      are cached just like the results of a normal File Find if search 
      results caching is enabled.
      FYI, in v8.20.0021 - 2009-08-25 15:25 QNS was excluded from search 
      results caching for reasons that don't apply anymore.

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v11.00.0000 - 2012-04-26 12:00
    = NEW OFFICIAL RELEASE. Main developments since last release:
  +++ Quick Name Search. A minimalist interface to finding files. 
      Combines ultimate power with ultimate ease.

QNS had become its own feature and was now documented in its own section.

Since then the feature got referenced by both Quick Name Search and just Quick Search with similar tendencies. After that excitement searching got a bit quiet, until in late 2013 when the water between QNS and Find Files got a little murky:

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v13.20.0016 - 2013-11-12 14:37
    * Configuration | Find Files & Branch View | Find Files: Moved "Show 
      relative path in Path column" back to section Find Files. It 
      looked so lost when it was lonely at the top. It still also 
      applies to Branch View.
    + Configuration | Find Files & Branch View | Find Files Added 
      option "Show name search results in current tab". Tick it to show 
      the Quick Name Search results always in the current tab (unless it 
      is locked), irrespective of the setting of "Configuration | Find 
      Files & Branch View | Find Files | Show search results in".
    + Name Search (aka Quick Name Search): Now optionally a message 
      "Name Search: <pattern>" is now shown in a name-searched list.
      Note that the message is only shown when the list is not also 
      visually filtered (else it is appended to the VF message), else 
      too many messages would crowd the screen.
      The message has a small context menu with two items, "Edit Name 
      Search..." and "Remove Name Search".
    + Configuration | Find Files & Branch View | Find Files: Added 
      option "Show name search information in list". Tick it to show a 
      name search information in list.
    * Name Search: From now on the Name Search MRU is also updated on 
      Name Searches through the Address Bar or through scripting. 
      Before, the MRU was only updated when the Name Search was 
      triggered through the Quick Name Search (F3) dialog.
    * Name Search: This feature from v10.90.0407 - 2012-04-19 12:16 has 
      been removed since it does not play well with the new 
      developments. And actually it was never fully implemented since it 
      did not work for Name Searches through the Address Bar or through 
      scripting!
      - Quick Name Searches are by default recursive. The "/r" switch is 
        auto-appended to the pattern, unless the pattern already 
        features any switch.
      So from now on Quick Name Searches follow the "Include subfolders" 
      setting for the general File Find (which usually is set to ON 
      anyway, so there will be no difference).

And again when Size was added to MFS:

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v13.50.0018 - 2013-12-31 15:49
    + Find Files: Now you can find files by size using the new field 
      prefix "size:". 
      Sure, there is already the "Size" tab but this enhancement opens 
      find-by-size to the Quick Name Search and hence also to Scripting.

Then dates were added to both in v14.10.0101, and Don realized it was no longer a name search and officially renamed it to Quick Search:

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v14.10.0102 - 2014-05-21 15:50
. . .
    * Quick Search: What's been called "Quick Name Search" and "Name Search" and 
      also "Quick Search" in recent years here in the change log, and all over 
      the app interface, and in the help file, and in the user forum, will from 
      now on be called just "Quick Search".

Since then there's been some polishing done on using QS from the catalog (Click & Search), how the information bar was presented, making QS a tab's home, and integration with Paper Folders. The waters have gotten murkier as both features got flags for fuzzy, diacritics, empties, parents, inversion, result limiting, the extended wildcard matching. Both were made to work with Portable Devices.

Still after all of this, the one big user-facing difference is Quick Search leaves the Find Files tab alone - as the documentation puts it:

The obvious idea is to offer an ultra-smooth access to the most common find task: the search by filename. No more need to open the Info Panel, select the mighty Find Files tab, reset any previous filters, enter a pattern, and press Find Now. Instead you completely bypass the Find Files tab leaving its current settings unused and unchanged.

::help 'idh_quicknamesearch.htm';

[eil]

wow, that's the first time me being on "history of XY" lecture! nice work

[autocart]

Wow, TheQuerty

Thx very much for this thorough historical summary.

... Still after all of this, the one big user-facing difference is Quick Search leaves the Find Files tab alone - as the documentation puts it:

The obvious idea is to offer an ultra-smooth access to the most common find task: the search by filename. No more need to open the Info Panel, select the mighty Find Files tab, reset any previous filters, enter a pattern, and press Find Now. Instead you completely bypass the Find Files tab leaving its current settings unused and unchanged.

::help 'idh_quicknamesearch.htm';

So, you are kind of confirming (in my eyes) what I thought before. Is it really necessary to have two different "features" (and treating them as such in the help file with 2 diff. names and 2 diff. chapters, displaying results differently, ...) only to *emphasize* the point that by using the one input method "you completely bypass the [other input method] leaving its current settings unused and unchanged"?

Is this really worth the confusion it causes at least to new users and the pain of thought working with it?

Could the info-panel form not simply be an interface to this "one" search-feature, the address bar another interface to the same search-feature and the QS-pop-up-input-window yet another. But they should all be interfaces to the same feature (in help file, name, display of results in general, ...).
>> It should be obvious that by choosing another interface the form does not get reset.

Well, that's my 2 cents. Hope that you, Don, can understand and feel what I mean. Any thoughts on it?

[autocart]

The question is still open for everybody, though.

If not enough people voice their uncomfortability with the current situation, Don will defenitely never improve it.
I am thinking, the need for improvement is user-friendliness, which starts @ understanding the concepts and them making sense to the user, or am I so wrong?

Is there nobody, at least some new users of the last year or two, who are uncomfortably confused over this?
Am I really the only one?

[bdeshi]

well, it doesn't look like there's much to change within XYplorer. All that needs changing or rather condensing is the help file and pals.

[Stef123]

Is there nobody, at least some new users of the last year or two, who are uncomfortably confused over this?
Am I really the only one?

I wouldn't say confused, but what really threw me off was the varying syntax. More than once I thought I had figured it out, then had to realize - nope, cannot do this in the AddressBar, not here in VisualFilters, this is for QNS only, to run this search from blah-blah I must precede the term with ? or * - which does not mean wildcards in this situation - things like that.

Not a problem when it won't find aynthing. But once in a while I did get results - and that's when things really start to get tricky. You have to match the date-format of the host system, otherwise you're in for bad surprises should you enter month/day instead of day/month.

To be honest, for reliable searches I still fall back on FileLocatorPro - where I have a pop-up calendar to pick my dates and other amenities. Highend's script for passing on searches to FileLocator comes in very handy.

[admin]

ISO 8601 (yyyy-mm-dd hh:nn:ss) works everywhere.

[Stef123]

Cannot confirm after a quick test in VisualFilters. Entering

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dateM: 2015-06-25

will not yield anything. But when I enter the same date matched to my system locale I do get results. The help file also mentions I have to enter dates in the format of the system locale.

[admin]

Confirmed. All will be good soon...

[autocart]

Thx to all contributions here,

well, it doesn't look like there's much to change within XYplorer. All that needs changing or rather condensing is the help file and pals.

That would definitely be the biggest junk of it. One chapter in the help file and one main name for the whole feature. Then the brain would not have to be twisted so much. :-)

But at least I am glad that this thread helped in some (other) way to improve XY, namely regarding the date (picker) in the find/search files dialog form.

regards

[Stef123]

Thanks for bringing the date fields up to par. Makes it much more tempting to run my searches within XY. The dbl-click is better than F1. Even better - for new users who may not know about this - if you could squeeze in a calendar icon to bring up the picker.

Once we're at it - another thing that threw me off when starting out with XY was seeing two rows of tabs. Actually, I still have to remind myself that the top row is completely unrelated to Find and that I better try to ignore it.

There is one thing, however, that is related to FindFiles and nothing else but FindFiles afaik: TEMPLATES. I remember using them to come to grips with less obvious parameters, but then wasting time to find them again, browsing the lower infobar tabs in vain. Turns out they're completely detached from FindFiles, even though they apply only here.

New users would benefit from a button TEMPLATES instead of "Reset Filters". You could sqeeze the latter as "Reset" next to the caption "Filters:" (instead of Applied Filters, which is obvious anyway because of the checkmarks)

[admin]

That button actually existed in earlier versions. I had to remove it for lack of space.

The Templates feature somehow moved out of focus because it turned out the most users don't understand it. Maybe it's not done well enough. Also in recent years Quick Search got more and more attention and power, and today you can do almost everything with it. It's more in line with the "flat approach" that characterizes XY: You can do powerful things with just a line of characters. Ultimately the whole thing can be steered through the Address Bar... we'll see...

[Stef123]

Thanks for taking the time to explain.

... the "flat approach" that characterizes XY: You can do powerful things with just a line of characters. Ultimately the whole thing can be steered through the Address Bar... we'll see...

Interesting outlook. Maybe FindFiles could survive outside of the infobar, as an XY-scripted interface to compose those flat one-liners in a user-friendly "click-together" fashion. The generated search string would then feed the AB or VF or whatever destination is offered by an "output" dropdown. Just ideas ....