Fast Search Using Index

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Re: Fast Search Using Index

Post by igorlima »

Ovg wrote: Thu Nov 04, 2021 6:58 pm
igorlima wrote: Thu Nov 04, 2021 11:03 am Just spent 1 and a half hour searching for a term in all my pdf files.
Windows index search doesn't works?



20211104_215424.png

20211104_215101.png

It seems working for me ...
is this to use the "search panel" function in pdf xchange?
image.png
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Re: Fast Search Using Index

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No, it's Windows Search

20211104_221101.png
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Re: Fast Search Using Index

Post by igorlima »

Ovg wrote: Thu Nov 04, 2021 7:14 pm No, it's Windows Search


20211104_221101.png
oh I see, but I think this thread is talking about the built in search engine in xchange editor
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Re: Fast Search Using Index

Post by Ovg »

it is a some kind of a workaround (crutch) :)
Last edited by Ovg on Thu Nov 04, 2021 8:10 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Fast Search Using Index

Post by igorlima »

Ovg wrote: Thu Nov 04, 2021 8:07 pm it is some workaround :-)
yeah, I think It could be!

do you use it? index aside, do you know if it has the same functions as the built in search in xchange?
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Re: Fast Search Using Index

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Yes, otherwise i wouldn't propose that ...
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Re: Fast Search Using Index

Post by Ovg »

igorlima wrote: Thu Nov 04, 2021 8:10 pm do you know if it has the same functions as the built in search in xchange?
No, this is a crutch, but it is better than nothing...
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Re: Fast Search Using Index

Post by igorlima »

Ovg wrote: Thu Nov 04, 2021 8:27 pm
igorlima wrote: Thu Nov 04, 2021 8:10 pm do you know if it has the same functions as the built in search in xchange?
No, this is a crutch, but it is better than nothing...
have you tried specific softwares that do index search? I'm testing a program called FileLocator Pro and I'm liking it. I used the windows search engine very little but I think this program is better...
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Re: Fast Search Using Index

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I'm using free Everything from voidtools.com, it can index and search for content (instant), but it take some memory for storing content index, so I use it for instant search for files only (My PC has only 8 Gb RAM).
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Re: Fast Search Using Index

Post by igorlima »

TrackerSupp-Daniel wrote: Thu Nov 04, 2021 3:40 pm Hello, igorlima

Unfortunately, nothing new as of yet.

Kind regards,
That's unfortunate. But thanks anyway, Daniel!

Ovg wrote: Thu Nov 04, 2021 9:33 pm I'm using free Everything from voidtools.com, it can index and search for content (instant), but it take some memory for storing content index, so I use it for instant search for files only (My PC has only 8 Gb RAM).
I see, I also use everything from voidtools.com but only for the title of the documents. I love it.
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Re: Fast Search Using Index

Post by TrackerSupp-Daniel »

:)
Dan McIntyre - Support Technician
Tracker Software Products (Canada) LTD

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Our Web site domain and email address has changed as of 26/10/2023.
https://www.pdf-xchange.com
Support@pdf-xchange.com
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Re: Fast Search Using Index

Post by Timur Born »

To put some perspective to this: Editor searches already are very fast on a modern CPU with high enough single-core clock-rate. Unfortunately it does not use multi-threading (cores) for search even when multiple documents are searched concurrently.

Here is a test searching 324 PDF files between 2 mb and 286 mb and up to several hundred pages of image and text heavy files, a total of about 6.5 gb data.

Search "and" (whole word) within same paragraph in all open files (from Windows files cache = no drive access):
Image

Doing the same search with files residing on a network attached storage (Synology 2-bay NAS without raid) takes slightly over 4 mins (NAS SSD) or 5 mins (NAS spinning platter HD). In these case the storage access is the bottleneck for the first run of a search, but once the data is decoded to memory by Editor any consecutive search is just as fast as in the screenshot, regardless of where the files originally reside.

The suggested voidtools Everything does not index content, but only filenames. And while Windows' Search can index PDF content it only lists file-names as results and only works on local drives. There are third-party tools that can do better, but these are not necessarily free.

Adobe Acrobat and some competitors offer the best solution to this problem: search indexes can be embedded into the PDF files and then be used to get instant search results on any computer. Editor would have to read those embedded indexes to make use of them for its own search and preferably even offer to do its own index embedding.

PS: Is there a way to make Editor open all PDF files of a folder structure (including subfolders)? I had to use Windows Search to get all PDF files of a folder structure and then open the results via context-menu.
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Re: Fast Search Using Index

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Timur Born wrote: Wed May 04, 2022 2:10 pm The suggested voidtools Everything does not index content, but only filenames.
Sorry, but you are wrong. Everything can index content and moreover, Everything can use Window Search for instant find content. (Look at si: search function)
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Re: Fast Search Using Index

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Another result that helps understand why XChange Editor is less in need of indexing than other PDF solutions on modern hardware. I asked Acrobat Reader, Foxit Reader and XChange Editor to search for the whole word "and" in a 7.95 gb folder structure of 1366 files (775 PDFs). All files resided in the Windows file cache (no need to read the data from SSD).

Acrobat Reader: 25 mins (500 documents, 316,672 hits)
Foxit Reader: 14 mins (500 documents, 314,973 instances)
XChange Editor: 3 mins (690 documents, 343,151 entries)

Getting embedded indexes would still be very welcome, as both Acrobat and Foxit support these in reading and writing. Searching "and" in a single document of 39551 pages takes 18 secs in Editor on the first run, but less than 1 sec on consecutive runs, so using an embedded index would help with that.
Last edited by Timur Born on Wed May 04, 2022 6:18 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Fast Search Using Index

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Ovg wrote: Wed May 04, 2022 4:32 pm
Timur Born wrote: Wed May 04, 2022 2:10 pm The suggested voidtools Everything does not index content, but only filenames.
Sorry, but you are wrong. Everything can index content and moreover, Everything can use Window Search for instant find content. (Look at si: search function)
v1.5 ALPHA does offer content indexing. But since it only lists file names, just like Windows Search, it does not help us much with searching content in PDF files.

What Everything does and Editor lacks: multi-threaded indexing of files. Everything takes less than 1 min to index the same folder that Editor took 3 mins to search through, using all my 24 logical cores.
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Re: Fast Search Using Index

Post by Timur Born »

Are there any plans to implement embedded indexes for reading and maybe even writing?
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Re: Fast Search Using Index

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Timur Born wrote: Wed May 04, 2022 5:49 pmv1.5 ALPHA does offer content indexing. But since it only lists file names, just like Windows Search, it does not help us much with searching content in PDF files.
If the files in question have been indexed by Windows, which is usually the case at least with local files, but also works with files on the network:

https://www.nextofwindows.com/windows-tip-how-to-full-text-index-search-files-on-a-network-mapped-drive

...then with Everything™ starting with v1.5 there is unmatched fast access to both file names and file contents, e.g. with the following search syntax:

Code: Select all

si:[content search term] [file name portions]
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Re: Fast Search Using Index

Post by Timur Born »

Folks, it's nice that you have fun using Everything, but it only find files, not locations within files. If someone is searching for specific matches and locations within a 10000 pages file then Windows Search and Everything does nothing to solve that and thus has taken too much space in this thread already. It's XChange Editor's job to find these and return results as fast as possible.

So for the purposes of this thread Windows Search and Everything are mostly useless other than showcasing that multi-threaded indexing could be much faster than what XChange Editor already offers.

The best solution would be for Editor to properly support embedded indexes which are saved within the PDF file, like Adobe and Foxit already do. Providing its own local index for files that cannot use embedded indexes would be the cream on top.

But in the past Tracker developers argued that writing a decode cache (similar to GPU shader caches) would waste users' storage space. So I wouldn't hope for the latter, but still strongly vote for the former.
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Re: Fast Search Using Index

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I believe that PDF software from some competitors rely on indices mainly because the search otherwise takes an unbearably long time with their products.

I just tried it with a PDF of over 6000 pages and about 400 MB in size. The first search pass with Ad0be Acr0bat DC with a single search term already took 4 minutes.

The second search run for the same search term (!) took a full 3 minutes. And so on.

This is of course totally unacceptable, which is why they have to resort to indices in order to make their software even remotely usable.

The presumably also well-intended F0xit, when I try it out once about every two years, each time is so awful that I immediately uninstall it, so no tests on my part with this one.

In PDF-XChange Editor, the first search in the same document took 26 seconds, and each subsequent search less than 1 second, additionally with a convenient and easily accessible input mask for advanced searches including Boolean, Proximity, etc.

Accordingly, I believe that there is no need for index creation in PDF-XChange Editor, for any kind of normal operation.

In my view, a system-wide full-text search is not the job of an editor, but of specific search software. I use Archivarius 3000 for this purpose, which works very well for half a million files, but unfortunately has not been updated for several years.

Therefore, I try to keep myself up to date for possible successors. In this regard, according to my current market overview, Agent Ransack looks extremely promising, to say the least:

Image
(the search took so long because I did not create an index so far)
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Re: Fast Search Using Index

Post by Timur Born »

Which is why I wrote this earlier. :P
Timur Born wrote: Wed May 04, 2022 5:47 pm Another result that helps understand why XChange Editor is less in need of indexing than other PDF solutions on modern hardware. I asked Acrobat Reader, Foxit Reader and XChange Editor to search for the whole word "and" in a 7.95 gb folder structure of 1366 files (775 PDFs). All files resided in the Windows file cache (no need to read the data from SSD).

Acrobat Reader: 25 mins (500 documents, 316,672 hits)
Foxit Reader: 14 mins (500 documents, 314,973 instances)
XChange Editor: 3 mins (690 documents, 343,151 entries)

Getting embedded indexes would still be very welcome, as both Acrobat and Foxit support these in reading and writing. Searching "and" in a single document of 39551 pages takes 18 secs in Editor on the first run, but less than 1 sec on consecutive runs, so using an embedded index would help with that.
FileLocator Pro / Agent Ransack takes 1:51 mins for this search (found 707 documents), using up to 24 threads. But the last few threads/files take a long time to finish (nearly the whole last minute), so per thread/file it seems slower than Editor. There also doesn't seem to be an option to open a result in the default application (instead of the internal editor or a single default external editor)?!

Also keep in mind that indixes help a lot on weaker machines.
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Re: Fast Search Using Index

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FileLocator Plus takes 1:02 mins for a specific file that Editor takes 0:05 mins on. So Editor doing multi-threaded search and indexing of PDF files would be a *lot* faster than likely all indexing solutions out there. Add to that the possibility of embedding indexes with the PDF files themselves and any weak computer could benefit without having to rerun the indexing (for writable files that is).
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Re: Fast Search Using Index

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Timur Born wrote: Fri May 06, 2022 7:08 am FileLocator Plus takes 1:02 mins for a specific file that Editor takes 0:05 mins on. So Editor doing multi-threaded search and indexing of PDF files would be a *lot* faster than likely all indexing solutions out there. Add to that the possibility of embedding indexes with the PDF files themselves and any weak computer could benefit without having to rerun the indexing (for writable files that is).
As mentioned, I have not yet further experimented with FileLocator Plus (which is essentially identical to Agent Ransack). However, I would be very surprised if the search results (of course after an indexing run beforehand) were not instantaneous, as can be expected from a full-text indexer.

Certainly it would be a good feature if PDF-XChange Editor had indexing capabilities as well. However, this feature is focused on a rather small, specific target group.

A larger group would probably want to index not only PDF files, but various other document types as well. For me, for example, that would be a few 100,000 MSG, DOC, MHT, TXT, PPT and XLS files, among a few other file types.
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Re: Fast Search Using Index

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It would be the target group that works with largish PDF files starting at a few dozen pages long. I regularly open about a dozen PDF files that I have to navigate through quickly, either by bookmarks, search or duplicate tabs (to keep different pages of the same PDF open). Using an external search program with different UI would be everything but "quickly" and integrated. When I work with PDFs then I don't need results for e-mails or work-files, I want to stay in the PDF environment.

PDF viewers/editors finally have to learn to make content more accessible by improving on their search tools and especially display of search results. It's been 10 years since I first asked for XChange's search results to please be sorted by relevance, preferably with thumbnails. That's something Mac OS' Preview offers for even longer than a decade already, but Windows users still have to go from page 1 in chronological order with no easily accessible visual clues on finding the correct page.

But I obviously digress. We get the a gazillion ways of placing comments into PDF files in umpteen PDF applications, but somehow everyone forgets that those files are first and foremost meant to be read and used. And repeatedly waiting for the same searches to finish is just another nuisance we have to bear when it comes to PDF content searching.
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Re: Fast Search Using Index

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David.P wrote: Fri May 06, 2022 3:11 pmAs mentioned, I have not yet further experimented with FileLocator Plus (which is essentially identical to Agent Ransack). However, I would be very surprised if the search results (of course after an indexing run beforehand) were not instantaneous, as can be expected from a full-text indexer.
Then be surprised. First of all you specifically have to switch to "Index Search", else the index does not seem to be used for searches. Then the UI changes to a single entry field with no simple way to tell it to only search in a specific single PDF file (instead of all).

And even if it was less convoluted then all these external index/search tools would still be much more hassle than simply pressing CTRL-F in Editor to search in the currently open document(s).
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Re: Fast Search Using Index

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Timur Born wrote: Fri May 06, 2022 3:34 pm It would be the target group that works with largish PDF files starting at a few dozen pages long. I regularly open about a dozen PDF files that I have to navigate through quickly, either by bookmarks, search or duplicate tabs (to keep different pages of the same PDF open). Using an external search program with different UI would be everything but "quickly" and integrated. When I work with PDFs then I don't need results for e-mails or work-files, I want to stay in the PDF environment.

PDF viewers/editors finally have to learn to make content more accessible by improving on their search tools and especially display of search results. It's been 10 years since I first asked for XChange's search results to please be sorted by relevance, preferably with thumbnails. That's something Mac OS' Preview offers for even longer than a decade already, but Windows users still have to go from page 1 in chronological order with no easily accessible visual clues on finding the correct page.

But I obviously digress. We get a gazillion ways of placing comments into PDF files in umpteen PDF applications, but somehow everyone forgets that those files are first and foremost meant to be read and used. And repeatedly waiting for the same searches to finish is just another nuisance we have to bear when it comes to PDF content searching.
[emphasis added]

I agree with most of this, but note once again that searches in PDF-XChange Editor are already instantaneous, once the files have been opened and searched for the first time.

Also, if you consider the unearthly awful software of the PDF 'market leader' as a benchmark, then PDF-XChange Editor has been playing in a league totally inaccessible to the former for many years.

Certainly there are still improvements to be desired in PDF-XChange Editor. I may take this opportunity to mention an earlier feature request for improving the reliability of Proximity Search (i.e. to find word combinations in a paragraph even if the paragraph is separated by a page break):

https://forum.pdf-xchange.com/viewtopic.php?f=62&t=28966&hilit=proximity#p114632

Otherwise, my full support for the feature request regarding the sorting of search results e.g. by relevance, and if possible, listing them together with thumbnails.

The Mac OS way can be seen in a video by some Reddit user linked below (at the top left, one could switch to "Sort by Search Rank", i.e relevance):
https://streamable.com/31ros

However, since PDF-XChange Editor already has an extremely powerful Thumbnail Pane (due to its unmatched speed and the countless advanced commands in the thumbnails' context menus), it would probably be a waste of screen space to additionally display thumbnails in the Search Pane as well.

My suggestion would therefore be to add two options to the Thumbnail Pane, namely:

A) "Show Search Result Highlights in Thumbnails", and

B) "Sort Thumbnails by Search Result Relevance" (e.g. by number of search hits)
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Re: Fast Search Using Index

Post by Timur Born »

Some iOS PDF viewers simply change their thumbnail pane to only display those pages that include search hits. This should be doable in XChange Editor as well and the search/thumbnail panels can easily be moved to the same side for close proximity. Search results would have to get rid of this mostly useless waste of space, too.

Image

Back to indexing. I obviously agree that Editor already offers ridiculously fast searches, but on weaker hardware embedded indexes would still help in a meaningful way. And searching multiple documents via multiple CPU threads would also speed up processing a lot.
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Re: Fast Search Using Index

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Timur Born wrote: Fri May 06, 2022 5:26 pmSome iOS PDF viewers simply change their thumbnail pane to only display those pages that include search hits. This should be doable in XChange Editor as well and the search/thumbnail panels can easily be moved to the same side for close proximity.
[emphasis added]

Hello @Tracker team, that makes sense and I think should be recorded as another awesome feature request -- which I believe many users would support.

Ideally, that feature could also include something along the lines of:
David.P wrote: Fri May 06, 2022 4:30 pm [...] My suggestion would therefore be to add some options to the Thumbnail Pane, namely:

A) "Show Search Result Highlights in Thumbnails", and
B) "Sort Thumbnails by Search Result Relevance" (e.g. by number of search hits)
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Re: Fast Search Using Index

Post by Paul - Tracker Supp »

Hi guys,

the devs have agreed to A) but not B)

So the ticket RT#6071: Feature Request :: Editor :: Show Search Result Highlights in Thumbnails has been raised and we will do this. but the feeling is that the other request is raising too many questions like:
initially you have all pages viewing in Thumbnails Pane. Then you try to find something and, for example - nothing is found. Then thumbnails must become empty? That would look, strange.
Or when you found something on just 2 pages in 100-pages doc. Should we show there only such two pages? But what would you do with that when you decide to continue work with pages in the doc (i.e. simply reorder some other pages there)? Will you remember that actually you are not viewing all but subset of pages?
So a partial yes and a partial no.

regards
Best regards

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Re: Fast Search Using Index

Post by Timur Born »

Blunt answer: Yes, we would remember, since we are not dumb and also see page numbers on thumbnails (something like 13, 257, 658 would give us a very strong hint). Even more so, because we are still in "search results mode" with highlights and the search pane showing so. And maybe Editor would just disallow page reordering while thumbs are in search mode? You would likely put a box/button to switch between them anyway.

Alternatively Editor could put thumbnails into its search results instead of the currently used same sheet icon for search results in page text.

This Image instead of this Image

Currently Editor does little to help me find the correct page for a search result *fast*. Instead I have to scroll and read through results and often just click through many of them once I am in the vicinity (expected page range), because it is faster to find something by seeing the actual page (layout).

Fortunately I often search for stuff that also is bookmarked in the PDFs content bookmarks. So search results lists hits in bookmarks which I then click to focus the bookmark panel to (often listed as last entry at the bottom of the bookmark panel). Which brings me to a suggestion: please allow bookmark search results to be (double?)clicked to go to the bookmark's respective page directly from said search result. Would save a lot of eye-movement and mouse-movement, especially if multiple bookmarks have to be checked for the wanted result.

And thumbnails would not become empty when a search results in no hits, they just show all thumbs.

PS: I would like for CTRL+Shift+F to not only open the search panel, but also close it again.
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Re: Fast Search Using Index

Post by David.P »

Hello all,
Timur Born wrote: Tue May 10, 2022 11:00 pm Blunt answer: Yes, we would remember, since we are not dumb and also see page numbers on thumbnails (something like 13, 257, 658 would give us a very strong hint). Even more so, because we are still in "search results mode" with highlights and the search pane showing so. And maybe Editor would just disallow page reordering while thumbs are in search mode? You would likely put a [toggle search thumbnail view] box/button to switch between [search results view mode and normal view mode] anyway.

Alternatively Editor could put thumbnails into its search results instead of the currently used same sheet icon for search results in page text.

This Image instead of this Image

Currently Editor does little to help me find the correct page for a search result *fast*. Instead I have to scroll and read through results and often just click through many of them once I am in the vicinity (expected page range), because it is faster to find something by seeing the actual page (layout).

Fortunately I often search for stuff that also is bookmarked in the PDFs content bookmarks. So search results lists hits in bookmarks which I then click to focus the bookmark panel to (often listed as last entry at the bottom of the bookmark panel). Which brings me to a suggestion: please allow bookmark search results to be (double?)clicked to go to the bookmark's respective page directly from said search result. Would save a lot of eye-movement and mouse-movement, especially if multiple bookmarks have to be checked for the wanted result.

And thumbnails would not become empty when a search results in no hits, they just show all thumbs.

PS: I would like for CTRL+Shift+F to not only open the search panel, but also close it again.
[Emphasis and square bracket terms added]

I agree with everything Timur says about this feature request.
Except maybe for the one thing that I actually am a little bit dumb.

Keep up the great work
Best regards
David

--
PS: Bonus
Image
["STRG" and "UMSCHALT" are German for "CTRL" and "SHIFT" ]
edited for typos
Last edited by David.P on Wed May 11, 2022 1:25 pm, edited 4 times in total.
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Re: Fast Search Using Index

Post by Timur Born »

Thanks for the search pane hint, I did not recognize that there were two separate commands to open advanced search and to open/close the pane (of which open seems to be the same as advanced search). I changed my hotkeys accordingly. :D
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Re: Fast Search Using Index

Post by Timur Born »

And to close the circle: a local (non embedded) index could also cache the thumbnails with each using less than 1 kb storage.
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Re: Fast Search Using Index

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Timur Born wrote: Wed May 11, 2022 12:19 pm Thanks for the search pane hint, I did not recognize that there were two separate commands to open advanced search and to open/close the pane (of which open seems to be the same as advanced search). I changed my hotkeys accordingly. :D
Actually, I also only found out about this two days ago ;)
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Re: Fast Search Using Index

Post by Timur Born »

In order to not go too off-topic in this thread I created a thumbnail specific one a few days ago.

https://forum.pdf-xchange.com/viewtopic.php?f=62&t=38776
Last edited by Timur Born on Thu May 12, 2022 2:05 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Fast Search Using Index

Post by Tracker Supp-Stefan »

Hello Timur Born,

Thanks! It's better when separate discussions are in their own topics! :)

Kind regards,
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Re: Fast Search Using Index

Post by David.P »

Timur Born wrote: Tue May 10, 2022 11:00 pm Fortunately I often search for stuff that also is bookmarked in the PDFs content bookmarks. So search results lists hits in bookmarks which I then click to focus the bookmark panel to (often listed as last entry at the bottom of the bookmark panel). Which brings me to a suggestion: please allow bookmark search results to be (double?)clicked to go to the bookmark's respective page directly from said search result. Would save a lot of eye-movement and mouse-movement, especially if multiple bookmarks have to be checked for the wanted result.
[Emphasis added]

Because I am currently involved with various files with thousands of bookmarks once again, a quick bump for this ↑ feature request.

Also, a small but useful addition in my view would be this:

Bookmarks Real Time FAYT Search Box.png

...as already discussed before some years ago:
https://forum.pdf-xchange.com/viewtopic.php?p=100730&hilit=box+filter#p100730
Image

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David
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Re: Fast Search Using Index

Post by Paul - Tracker Supp »

OK - two tickets made here:

RT#6129: Feature request :: Editor :: Filter in the Links Pane
and
RT#6130: Feature request :: Editor :: Filter in the Bookmarks Pane

Regarding this:
please allow bookmark search results to be (double?)clicked to go to the bookmark's respective page directly from said search result.
the request was rejected with the explanation:
The results list navigates to results only, not to the places pointed by found bookmarks.
sorry
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Re: Fast Search Using Index

Post by David.P »

Awesome Paul -- thank you!

However, the RT#6129 feature was not a mockup -- it's actually already there :D
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Re: Fast Search Using Index

Post by Paul - Tracker Supp »

Oops!

Well I would admit to being embarrassed by that, but if you had ever met me you would know it takes more than this...

Ticket RT#6129: Feature request :: Editor :: Filter in the Links Pane has been deleted.
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Re: Fast Search Using Index

Post by David.P »

That's of course understood Paul!
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:)
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Re: Fast Search Using Index

Post by Paul - Tracker Supp »

:)
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Re: Fast Search Using Index

Post by Timur Born »

Paul - Tracker Supp wrote: Mon Jun 06, 2022 9:29 pm
please allow bookmark search results to be (double?)clicked to go to the bookmark's respective page directly from said search result.
the request was rejected with the explanation:
The results list navigates to results only, not to the places pointed by found bookmarks.
sorry
Thanks for the information. The explanation is rather odd, though, because it literally says: we will not implement this, because this is not implemented.
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Re: Fast Search Using Index

Post by Paul - Tracker Supp »

yeah,

please forgive me there, English is a second language for that Dev and I just quoted directly, I believe he means
The results list should navigate to results only, not to the places pointed by found bookmarks.
As in, that is the intended functionality and I believe he is saying he does not feel search results should point to places that are pointed to in bookmarks.
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Re: Fast Search Using Index

Post by Timur Born »

I got that point, but I obviously disagree, hence why I suggested to change it. The current implementation is "limiting" and I would like to see an "enabling" implementation instead. It could be implemented via double-click or via modifier-click (like holding CTRL).

Hardly anyone is searching for bookmarks unless they are working on bookmarks themselves. Instead we are searching for the content that bookmarks point to, because these have by far the highest chance to be what we are originally looking for.

As long as Editor does not offer search result sorting by relevance (which would take bookmarks and headers into account) it causes us users unnecessary work and clicking to find relevant stuff.

Let's try the other way around:

Currently I find myself repeatedly and very often searching for a term, finding a corresponding bookmark in the search pane, click on the bookmark result in the search pane, then move the mouse all over from the right side of the screen to the left side of the screen to aim for the highlighted bookmark and click it to finally arrive at the intended search result. This regularly gets me where I intend to go, but the path is unnecessarily convoluted. Would you consider implementing a feature that improves this (for me) very common task?
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Re: Fast Search Using Index

Post by TrackerSupp-Daniel »

Hello, Timur Born

I can forward these points for consideration to our Development team, but I would advise against getting your hopes up too high here. Offering a chronological list is much more straightforward and predictable than having hinting and relevant searches ongoing to muddle the output. It may seem like it would be better, but the criteria for such "relevance sorting" is FAR more complex than it would appear to be, and would be just as likely to appear almost random, as it would to help in some cases.
It is far more liable to annoy and confuse a large portion of our users who are expecting the simple, straightforward chronological list, if they updated and encountered what you are suggesting.

It may be something that is reconsidered and offered in the far future, but it is not likely to be something that we see for many years yet.

Kind regards,
Dan McIntyre - Support Technician
Tracker Software Products (Canada) LTD

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