Incremental Search?

Protocol · Post by **Protocol** » 2004 Oct 08, 01:52

I was reading in the tips of the day at startup that you can do incremental searches, but I cannot find it anywhere in the Help Files or the Quick Start Guide. Can someone please explain how this is done?

Post by **nikos** » 2004 Oct 08, 07:05

it should be explained in the tips, albeit laconically
basically you just start typing characters from the name, and if you type them fast enough and a matching name exists in a folder, it will be hilighted (selected). So try pressing m followed by a and it will select the first file that begins with ma, e.g. mamal.txt

if you hold down <shift> it will match filename extensions

Protocol · Post by **Protocol** » 2004 Oct 08, 08:35

But it doesn't start searching until you press the "OK" button. So how can you search incrementally?
I have obviously missed something here.

Is there another way to search?

Post by **nikos** » 2004 Oct 08, 11:03

what ok button?
what I am describing is what happens when you start typing as you work with a regular folder in a regular window
you must be pressing Ctrl+F first?
that is a different command altogether

Protocol · Post by **Protocol** » 2004 Oct 08, 11:43

nikos wrote:what ok button?
what I am describing is what happens when you start typing as you work with a regular folder in a regular window
you must be pressing Ctrl+F first?
that is a different command altogether

So tell me how I get to this. What is it that you are saying? I am completely lost. Are we both talking about searching for files and folders?

Post by **nikos** » 2004 Oct 08, 12:13

the documented "incremental search" doesn't have to do anything with "finding files" (the terms sound similar of course)

"incremental search" is a quick way to move the focus on a particular file. Say you are browsing a folder with 1000 items in it and you want to get quickly to an item whose name starts with "w"; you can either press <PageDown> a few hundred times or just press w and x2 will scroll to reveal the first file whose name begins with "w"

this is a common windows control feature, explorer does it too
but only "searches" in the current folder (or pane if we're talking about scrap windows)

hth

Protocol · Post by **Protocol** » 2004 Oct 08, 23:31

OK. Thanks. I got it now...