[PD] Browse/Search plugin update

[Hans-Christoph Steiner]

On Oct 31, 2012, at 2:20 PM, Jonathan Wilkes wrote:

> ----- Original Message -----
> 
>> From: Hans-Christoph Steiner <hans at at.or.at>
>> To: Jonathan Wilkes <jancsika at yahoo.com>
>> Cc: PD List <pd-list at iem.at>
>> Sent: Tuesday, October 30, 2012 10:38 PM
>> Subject: Re: [PD] Browse/Search plugin update
>> 
>> 
>> On 10/30/2012 07:20 PM, Jonathan Wilkes wrote:
>>> I updated my search plugin by adding a progressbar:
>>> 
>>> http://puredata.info/Members/jancsika/searchandbrowseplugin/view
>>> 
>>> It also prints out the number of files it searched.  There were some
>>> reports of a search taking over a minute, but with GNU/Linux and
>>> winxp I'm getting about 3 seconds for a little over 9,000 docs (I
>>> think I'm searching two different copies of pd-extended libs so
>>> that should be well over what you'd typically be searching).  If
>>> people are getting long searches please start by telling me how
>>> many files you're searching.  Also, the progressbar updates don't
>>> start until it's built a list of files and sorted it, so if it's 
>> taking a long
>>> time when you search before the progressbar appears then that
>>> may be the culprit.
>>> 
>>> Now that the interface updates live I don't really think there's 
>> much
>>> need to build an index.  You can start reading the first results
>>> immediately and even scroll the list as it finishes printing the results.
>>> (I guess I can also add a "Cancel" button, too.)
>>> 
>>> Let me know if there are any bugs.
>>> 
>>> -Jonathan
>> 
>> Looking very good!  I consider this something everyone should install now.
> 
> It's UI is designed to be a drop-in replacement for the ctrl-b browser.  You should
> be able to browse all the same locations, plus the user gets descriptions of
> all the libdirs which makes browsing them much more meaningful.  There is
> zero delay when browsing docs.  (Well, aside from a small delay on winxp
> with the libdirs because of another lsort -command, but I'll be removing that
> soon.)
> 
> You can use ctrl-minus and ctrl-plus (or ctrl-equals) to make the text larger or
> smaller, just like every web browser and word-processor I've ever used, so it
> has more accessibility than the ctrl-b browser.  Additionally, clicking the folder
> icon to bring up the containing folder is easier to discover than however you
> do that in the ctrl-b browser (which isn't documented).
> 
> Finally, displaying a description for the content of pd files encourages devs to
> actually describe the content of their files.  I know "No DESCRIPTION tag" looks
> ugly but the fix is to add descriptions and improve the documentation.
> 
> If there's interest in this replacing the ctrl-b browser I'll do some work to make it
> an actual drop-in replacement instead of a plug-in.  (So for example, you click
> ctrl-b and the search/browse plugin pops up.)

Its definitely a lot more polished than the help browser, and its almost a complete replacement.  Here are a couple things that I spotted:

* it lacks a clear way to go back a level, I think this would be well handled by standard back/forward buttons like are in internet browsers, file browsers, etc.

* there are a number of libraries that show: "version: no AUTHOR tag or values" while the author: field is filled out.

.hc





> 
> -Jonathan
> 
>> The 
>> progress bar is a good enhancement.  I wonder if it could somehow fit in to the 
>> GUI elements better somehow.  Its fine how it is, but it seems a little out of 
>> place.
>> 
>> Looks like there are some debug messages still in it, I get these when hovering:
>> 
>> filename is 5.reference/all_about_arrays.pd
>> basedir is /Applications/Pd-0.43.3-extended-20121008.app/Contents/Resources/doc
>> filename is 5.reference/loop~-help.pd
>> basedir is /Applications/Pd-0.43.3-extended-20121008.app/Contents/Resources/doc
>> filename is 5.reference/all_about_arrays.pd
>> filelist is 7751
>> filelist is 7751
>> 
>> .hc
>>