Click and Search. Tired of entering search patterns again and again? With this version XYplorer introduces a new search interface called "Click and Search", a collapsible and fully customizable list of your favorite search jobs. Even better: The jobs can be logically combined simply by ticking checkboxes. (Pro Edition Only)

The Click and Search feature offers vast possibilities. Here are three small examples: Searching the Current Location, Searching a Particular Location, and Searching Certain Fields.

Searching the Current Location

First let's create a Click and Search category by adding a new category to the Catalog and ticking Use category for searching Set the Operator dropdown to OR, and leave the Location field empty.

Creating a Click and Search category. (Click to zoom)

Now add some items as shown. Each of these items should be a search pattern. This will be the last time you have to type this pattern. From now on you will just click on it. Tip: Use the INS key to quickly add a new item to a category.

Now click on any of the items to run the search defined by this item:

Run a search by clicking an item. (Click to zoom)

Run a search by clicking an item. (Click to zoom)

Run a search by clicking an item. (Click to zoom)

Run a search by clicking an item. (Click to zoom)

Now when you tick (instead of click) one or more items the search will combine the ticked items, either with AND or with OR, depending on how you have set the Operator in the Category. Such a combined search is run when you un/tick any of the items, or when you click the Category itself.

Run an OR-combined search by clicking the category. (Click to zoom)

Run an AND-combined search by clicking the category. (Click to zoom)

Searching a Particular Location

You may have noted the Location field in the Category Properties dialog. If you set it to a location (a full local or network path) then only this location will be searched. Quite comfortable, especially with deep-nested network paths, since you don't have to go to the location before searching it.

Note that Multiple Location Search is supported: You can enter more than one locations into that field, separated by ; (semicolon).

Searching Certain Fields

A nice example for an advanced application of the Click and Search feature is the following Rating category. Create an Extra Column called "Rating" and configure it to be of type "Rating Stars". Now rate any files in your system, in any drive, including network locations. Now you can list the rated items within milliseconds simply by clicking/ticking the items in the Rating category.

List rated items across the system in a blink. (Click to zoom)

There is a lot more you can do with Click and Search. Read it up in the manual and start playing....

Tag Clouds. For tag-based file management Click and Search boils down to an interface you have already seen in the web: Tag Clouds! Tagging files is finally becoming useful. (Pro Edition Only)

First of all, you should have tagged a couple of items. Now right-click the Catalog and select Insert as New Category Here | Tags. Automagically a new "Click and Search" Category is added featuring all tags used in the database as individual items. That's your Tag Cloud (well, almost a Tag Cloud -- the items are not weighted). The rest is as simple as it can get.

Creating the Tag Cloud. (Click to zoom)

Using the Tag Cloud. (Click to zoom)

Using the Tag Cloud. (Click to zoom)

Finally, let's do a combined search and find all items in the system that have been tagged Jazz AND Pop AND Rock. Note that the search took just 2 milliseconds:

Only one item has all three tags. (Click to zoom)

Column Layouts. Now you can export your details view column layouts to files, and later import them back into the list. That way you can very comfortably switch between context-specific column layouts. Of course, the layouts are portable and shareable.

Menu View | Columns | Save Column Layout As...: Saves the current column layout (all visible and invisible columns, their sequence, their captions, their widths) to a small TXT file in folder Columns in the application data path.

Menu View | Columns | Load Saved Column Layout...: Loads a new column layout (all visible and invisible columns, their sequence, their captions, their widths) from a small TXT file in folder Columns in the application data path.

Simple and effective. Now it's just a couple of clicks to show those countless MP3 columns, or your complex hand-crafted photo columns.

Pro Edition Only: The new scripting command ColumnLayout() enables you to further streamline switching between column layouts. Try this simple script in a Catalog Item:

$cs = listfolder("<xydata>\Columns", "*.txt", 5);
  $cs = replace($cs, ".txt", "");
  $c = popupmenu($cs);
  if ($c) {columnlayout($c)};

Ignore Articles When Sorting. Now this setting can be applied per tab or per folder, and you can assign a keyboard shortcut to it.

Find the setting in menu Tools | Customize List | Ignore Articles When Sorting.

Tip: To quickly apply "Ignore Articles When Sorting" to the current list you can right-click the Checkbox Selection toolbar button (or any other toolbar button that applies to list styles). This will pop a list of all available list style settings. The "Ignore Articles When Sorting" toggle is at the bottom of the list.

Toggle the setting ON for the current list. (Click to zoom)

Now you see the same folder in two different sort orders:

The left side ON, the right side OFF. (Click to zoom)

Of course, now you can store this setting along with a Folder View Setting (a folder specific list layout), so you can have particular folders, e.g. music or movie folders, sorted always ignoring articles.

Multilingual Support. Added support for Dutch.

How to load the Dutch language into XYplorer: Click menu Help | Select Language, then select Dutch from the list of available languages. Done. No restart required.

Currently available interface languages.