[Feature Request] File/Content Indexing Described By File

[richiek]

It would be very nice if Everything supported some kind of text file description of files and content to index. These files could be placed at the base directory of a complex tree of files/dirs and better specify what needs to be included/excluded in both file and content indexing contexts - and just for that directory hierarchy. That allows definitions to change depending on what tree is being indexed.

Example:
In my complex source tree base directory I have an everything_config.txt file (for want of a better name) that contains the following info

Code: Select all

[files-include]
relativepath1/
**/recurringDirName/

[files-exclude]
binaryDir/
*.exe
*.jpg

[content-include]
relativepath1/src/
*.cpp
*.h
*.txt

[content-exclude]
relativepath1/src/third-party/
**/recurringDirName/**/*.txt

These files might even choose to inherit or exclude definitions of config files further toward the root folder or global/application definition. Perhaps an inherit tag could do this?

Richard.

[therube]

(You can use multiple configuration file sets.
So you could do something like:

Everything -config howdoichangetheworld

and another

Everything

and another

Everything -config signofpie

)

[richiek]

Thanks for the suggestion, @therube.
Does that imply multiple instances of Everything? Or is that launching single instances at a time with different configs?

What I wanted (ideally) was to have a single instance that showed a slightly more complex filtered view of my filesystem based on directory-local config files.

Richard

[void]

This is tricky to do with your Everything.ini.

The Options UI is currently the easiest option to build your filters.

Use a semicolon delimited (;) list of wildcard filters:

Include only folders:
relativepath1;recurringDirName

-relativepath1 will match a folder named relativepath1 anywhere on the system.
-subfolders in these folders are included.

Exclude only folders:
**\relativepath1\src\third-party;binaryDir

-because we use a \ in the search above, we need to prefix relativepath1 with **\ as this will match the whole path and filename.
files in binaryDir (including subfolders) are excluded.

Include only files:
*.cpp;*.h;*.txt

Exclude only files:
*.exe;*.jpg

Notes:
Everything will match the whole basename.
Include a backslash (\) to match the whole path and filename.
Use wildcards to match partial searches.
Use the regex: prefix to match complex regular expressions, including negative look ahead searches.

[richiek]

Right. But in this scenario I can't conditionally exclude or include certain types based on path, whereas the filesystem crawler could do this if it dynamically adjusted its filtering settings when finding the suggested directory-based config files.

Anyway, it is only a request and a nice to have. The tool is already extremely useful with the current functionality.

Thanks for the reply,
Richard

[void]

You can specify the path in Include/Exclude files:

leave Include only folders and Exclude folders blank, and specify the paths in Include only files and Exclude files.

For example, Include only files:
**\relativepath1\src\**.cpp;**\relativepath1\docs\**.txt

[richiek]

Ah yeah. That's a good point!
Thanks!