Ok, I’ve tried Gnome wiki but didn’t found the answer so I guess here’s the place.
I’m trying a simple thing - search for file, using specific term, for example somefile . But the issue is Nautilus brings back not only somefile , but also someletters-somefile-someletters . How do I set it up? I might be interested in somefile-someletters , but rarely other options. I’ve tried using brackets, using terms like somefile* . None seem to work in Nautilus / GnomeFiles. How do you do it?
If the file is in the current directory, there is the CtrlS feature, which actually supports glob patterns (like somefile*).
Otherwise, there is no way to filter out non-prefix search results. Please note that there is also full-text search, so you may get files which don’t match the filename at all, but rather the content.
ouch! Was it always this way? This seems totally awkward - I don’t want to search entire filesystem, just the directory I’m in and subdirectories. And glob patterns would make total sense - so yeah, I guess feature request is on t the way.
This makes Nautilus search quite useless - because I’d need to do search in search results as too often I get too many unwanted results. For example - just minutes ago I’ve been trying to find a file I know that is somewhere in my Home folder (including subdirectiories). I know part of its name (nvidia) … and as you might have guessed I got so many results that quite frankly I had to give up “Nautilus way”.
Of course! It searches only the current directory and the subdirectories (recursively).
Did you get search results from other places? That’s not supposed to happen.
A person may know a part of the file name, while not being sure whether that’s at the start, at the middle, or at the end of the file name.
Glob patterns are very useful for fine-tuned filename matching in the command line, that’s true.
We should also keep in mind that search is an essential feature. Knowledge of glob patterns must not be a requirement in order to be able to search for files.
So, this needs more thought to figure out if and how it would fit in terms of the interface and interaction design. Do you have any idea in mind?
Sure - but if you don’t know glob patterns you still can use search.
On the other hand if you know glob patterns, but they’re not implemented you’re pretty much stuck.
And yes, I understand - with glob patterns implemented in basic way a novice user would get slightly less relevant search results.
But I’d argue we can get both - either through some settings tickbox etc or some intelligent pattern detection. That would be a real solution.
Also consider this - with glob patterns user can learn and thus improve their search experience. Without those implemented the experience cannot improve - it will stay bad in many cases (as in nvidia example above).
Sorry for insisting, but did you get results which were neither from current directory or any subdirectory?
Interesting. How would that work in detail?
This topic was automatically closed 14 days after the last reply. New replies are no longer allowed.