XYplorer Beta Club

I think there's something not quite right when doing a search with the 'Find hidden' option checked (which, by my understanding will find things that would normally be invisible due to the Ghost Filter and other options like Hide Protected Operation System Files).

For my examples below, I'll be doing a search on a folder that contains a single file that has the HIDDEN attribute (the desktop.ini file). No other files in the folder I'm searching have the hidden attribute.

First, I'll do a search with 'Find hidden' unchecked on the 'Name & Location' tab, and the option 'Hidden' checked on the 'Attributes' tab.

This finds 0 items, but I'm told in the List that '1 item is hidden', which makes sense I guess, since even though I'm searching for hidden files, the single file that would normally be found, desktop.ini, is being hidden in the Search Results tab by the setting Hide Protected Operation System Files. But if I look at the tooltip for the found items in the status bar, I see this:
Now this is where things are starting to look wrong to me. I understand that 1 item is hidden. But 92 items hidden by Ghost Filter? No, surely it should be telling me only about files that matched what I was searching for, but aren't being displayed. Maybe those 92 items are other things in the entire folder structure I'm searching that match the Ghost Filter, but in this case I'm searching only for files with the hidden attribute set. Therefore there should be only 1 file being taken into consideration. The way that tooltip makes it sound, it's like it's saying there were 92 search hits that are being filtered from view. Wrong. So that's the first thing that's wrong.

Second, I'll do a search with 'Find hidden' checked on the 'Name & Location' tab, and the option 'Hidden' checked on the 'Attributes' tab. Now I'll be expecting neither the Ghost Filter nor the Hide Protected Operation System Files to have any effect on the Search Results.

This finds the 1 item as expected, desktop.ini, and shows it to me in the Search Results tab. But if I look at the tooltip for the found items in the status bar, I see this:
This makes it sounds like 1 of the search hits is currently displayed, but that there are 92 other search hits that can't be displayed because of the Ghost Filter. Again, this is wrong. Not only are there not 92 search hits being affected by the Ghost Filter, but because the 'Find hidden' option was checked, the Ghost Filter shouldn't even be being considered. So that's the second thing that's wrong.

Good point. I also think Find Hidden should ignore the Ghost filter. Next beta. That should also fix the other issue you mentioned, right?

I've tried out the latest beta, version 23.50.0206, and the tooltip looks better now when searching using the 'Find hidden' checked.
But when searching without checking 'Find hidden', I'm still seeing the nonsense about there being 92 items in the Search Results being hidden by Ghost Filter. What that tooltip should be showing me in that case is simply that 1 item is hidden by user settings.

Currently can't find a way to reproduce this.

Create a test folder, and inside it create 2 new files:

.hidden_attribute_set
.no_attributes_set

For the file named '.hidden_attribute_set', set the HIDDEN attribute.

Create a Ghost Filter that hides all files starting with a dot and enable the Ghost Filter.

Now you should see nothing in the List. Do a Search starting from inside the test folder, with everything set to default except specifying on the Attributes tab that you want the Search Results to only included files with the hidden attribute set.

The status bar should show 0 items found (as expected).
Hovering over the 0 items on the statusbar will show you that 2 of the search results were hidden by the Ghost Filter (unexpected). The reality is that only 1 search result is being hidden by the Ghost Filter. The other one is not a search result.

Yes. I agree it is misleading, but ATM it cannot be improved. The sequence of checks is totally dominated by the desire for speed. A more truthful report would take more time. All that could be done would be to change the wording to "2 potential matches would be hidden by the ghost filter anyway", but that sounds a bit silly.

Understood, however I hope a solution can be found in future. I personally would prefer to see fully accurate and truthful information in the status bar on the Search Results tab, even if there's the possibility that some searches might take slightly longer. I imagine most people using Ghost Filter are only filtering out a very small percentage of the overall number of files on their computer, so searching everything and then applying the Ghost Filter against each item *after* it's found hopefully shouldn't affect speed noticeably for most searches.

Don't forget to remove this line from the Help: "Note that a Ghost Filter will hide items from search results even if Find Hidden is ticked."

Also: any way to make Find Hidden the default, so that when I click Reset Filters it leaves Find Hidden checked?

Not ATM.