(Read all of this, please!)
Copyright 1997-2003 by Florent Pillet, All Rights Reserved. | |
FindHack is a $14.95 shareware product. Please register! | |
FindHack Web Site: | http://perso.wanadoo.fr/fpillet/ |
Mirror Web Site: | http://fpillet.free.fr/ |
Support E-mail: | florent.pillet@wanadoo.fr |
FindHack is a replacement for the Palm OS® Find function. It is compatible with handhelds based on Palm OS 3.3 to Palm OS 5.
FindHack brings the following enhancements (among others):
- Remembers the last searches you did (configurable option)
- Lets you preconfigure favorites, with their search rules (see below)
- Lets you select where the search will be performed: in all applications, in built-in applications (Memo Pad, Date Book, To-Do List, Mail, Expense), the current application, the current text field or user-defined application sets.
- Lets you find a text even if it is not at the beginning of a word. For example, to find the word 'transport' you can type 'port'. The Palm's standard Find function does not allow this.
- Wildcards can be used when searching:
- Use the question mark (?) or dot (.) as a generic character. For example, looking for 'j?m' will find 'Jim', 'james', etc.
- Use '*' as a wildcard for any sequence of characters. For example, searching 'green*paint' would find 'Green Paint' and 'Green Or Blue Paint'. Note that due to the way the handheld performs a Find, the selected text for matches when using the '*' wildcard will be the exact size of the text YOU typed, not the exact size of the match.
- Use '!' to specify that the next character must be found at beginning of a word. It is very helpful to find sequences of numbers: you can for example use wildcards to search for all entries containing the numbers 50 and 60 using this search string: !50*!60. You can also use it for names, for example searching for '!eric' will find 'Eric' but not 'Frederic'.
- Boolean searches are possible: you can enter several words (aka 'Terms') in the Find field and have FindHack look for Any term (a record containing any of the words will match the search) or All terms (a record containing all of the words in any order will match the search).
- Lets you find the next occurence of a text in thecurrent text field. Very handy when you are editing a long memo and want to retrieve information in it.
- Lets you manage application sets. An application sets defines which applications are to be searched (more exactly, which ones are excluded from the search). This way, you can speed up Find operations when you know that the information you are looking for is located only in a specific set of applications.
- You can make the search case-insensitive and accent-insensitive.
- The results list only shows those apps containing matches for the search string.
- FindHack remembers the results that were found during the last search and can show you the last search results.
- Quickly navigate the results from application to application using the handy Space / Backspace Graffiti strokes, or Palm Tungsten's Left and Right directions on the 5-way pad.
To install FindHack, just HotSync it to your handheld.
A departure from previous versions, FindHack 4 is now a full-fledged application. You previously needed to use a system extension manager like Hackmaster to activate FindHack: this is not required anymore. Once you have installed FindHack on your handheld, launch the application once and check the Enable FindHack checkbox on the main screen.
To remove FindHack from your handheld, first start the FindHack application and make sure the Enable FindHack checkbox is unchecked (if FindHack's Find dialog appears when you tap your handheld's Find icon, then FindHack is not properly disabled). Delete the FindHack application by going to the Launcher (tap your handheld's Applications button) and select Delete in the Launcher's App menu.
a. Upgrading from FindHack 3.x
If you are upgrading from version 3.x or earlier, you will need to proceed with the following steps:
- Launch your system extension management application (HackMaster, X-Master, etc) and deactivate FindHack. If you do not deactivate FindHack before installing the new version, your handheld will most certainly crash the next time you try to do a Find.
- Delete the previous version of FindHack from your handheld.
- HotSync to install the new version of FindHack.
b. Upgrading from a previous version of FindHack 4
To upgrade from FindHack 4.x to a newer release, make sure that FindHack's Enable FindHack checkbox is unchecked, then HotSync to install the new version on your handheld. After that, open the FindHack application and check the Enable FindHack checkbox.
Starting with FindHack 4.0, many configuration options have been added. You simply need to launch the FindHack application to configure it.
4.1 Global options
The main configuration screen is the one displayed when you launch the FindHack application. Check the Enable FindHack box to activate FindHack. When the box is checked, tapping the Find icon on your handheld (right to the Graffiti writing zone) opens FindHack's Find dialog. If you uncheck the box, tapping the Find icon will bring the handheld's built-in Find dialog.
Select the number of recent search terms to remember in the pop-up menu right to the Remember last label. Recent search terms will appear in the pop-up menu at right of the Find: text field in the Find dialog.
Check the Non-Roman Language box if you are working on a device with a non-roman language. Once you check this box, a second box appears reading "Complex (Japanese, Chinese...)". Check this second box only if you are using a double-byte language (i.e. Japanese; Chinese). Most other non-roman writings like Cyrillic, Hebrew, etc. are not complex non-roman languages.
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4.2 Application Sets
FindHack allows you to define an unlimited number of Application Sets. Each set defines which applications are included in the search. This is very useful to create restricted sets of applications to search for specific data. For example, you may create a set which targets only business applications (word processor, spreadsheet, etc). This way, when searching for business-related data, FindHack will automatically skip all applications which don't contain data related to your search, speeding up the search and showing less results.
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To create a new set, tap the New... button. You will be prompted for a name to give to this set. Once created, the new set's name will appear in the pop-up menu at top of the screen. Below is the list of applications installed on your handheld. The checkbox right to each application's name indicates whether the application is enabled or disabled for this set.
You can activate or deactivate all applications at once by selecting Enable All or Disable All in the Applications menu.
To change the name of a set, select it in the pop-up menu then tap the Details... button.
To delete a set, select it in the pop-up menu, tap the Details... button then tap the Delete... button in the details dialog.
4.3 Favorites
Favorites are search terms that you predefine, along with their search options. Use favorites to quickly access the most frequent terms you look for on your handhelds. You can create any number of favorites. Your favorites will appear in the pop-up menu right to the Find: field in the Find dialog.
You can select whether favorites are displayed before or after the recent search terms in the pop-up menu. Note that favorites are displayed in bold in the menu, to distinguish them from recent search terms.
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Use the Show favorites pop-up menu at top of the window to select whether your favorites will appear before or after recent search terms in the Find dialog's menu.
Favorites are sorted alphabetically. Double-tap one in the list to modify it, or select it and tap the Details... button.
To create a new favorite, tap the New... button.
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Each favorite has its own search options which are restored when you select it in the pop-up menu at right of the Find: field in the Find dialog. Enter the term to search in the Find: field.
Select where this term should be searched using the In: pop-up menu. The four standard locations are displayed here (All applications, Current application, Built-in application, Current text field) as well as the application sets you have already defined.
Select the search mode for this term. Search modes are described in the next section, Using FindHack.
Also select whether this term should be search using case-insensitive and/or accent-insensitive methods by checking on unchecking the Ignore Case and Ignore Accents boxes.
4.4 Built-In Applications
Very often, users replace the built-in applications with more powerful versions. It is very common to find users replacing the built-in DateBook and Address Book with commercial products offering more functionality. FindHack offers a special feature for users replacing some or all built-in applications: instead of having to create an Application Set for the replacements, directly map the built-ins recognized by FindHack to the replacements instead of the original ones.
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To select a replacement for a built-in application, tap the name in the gray square. The application selection dialog pops up (see left) and lets you select the replacement application.
Choose the Reset To Defaults item in the Options menu to reset the built-in applications list to its default value.
5.1 The Find dialog
Once you have enabled FindHack, tapping the Find icon on your handheld (near the Graffiti input area) will bring FindHack's Find dialog. Note that this dialog is much richer than your handheld's built-in Find dialog!
If you used FindHack before, you will notice that the new dialog is quite similar, though it brings a number of improvements described below.
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Enter the text to look for in the Find: field.
Select where to search in the In: pop-up menu:
- All Applications: will search all applications on your handheld
- Built-In Applications: will search only the built-in applications. Note that built-in applications can be redefined, as described above.
- Current Application: only the current application will be searched.
- Current Text Field: this item appears in the menu only when you are in a text field by the time you tap the Find icon on your handheld. It lets you search the next occurence of the search text in the current text field, starting from the position of the cursor.
- Below these standard entries, you'll find the appplication sets you have defined (as explained above).
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Select the search method in the How: pop-up menu:
- Simple: will look for the text as it has been entered
- Wildcards: you can use Wildcards (*, ? or !) in the text for more powerful searches. The way wildcards work is described below. When you select Wildcards in the pop-up menu, three buttons appear to the right of the menu. You can tap them to insert one of the wilcard characters in the Find: field instead of typing them.
- Any term: enter several words in the Find: field. Any record containing one of these words will be listed in the search results.
- All terms: enter several words in the Find: field. Records containing all these words (in any order of appearance) will be listed in the search results.
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Choose whether you want the search to be case sensitive using the Ignore Case checkbox. If you check this box, the search becomes completely case-insensitive (i.e. if you type "flower" it may find "FLOWER"). On the contrary, unchecking this box lets you refine the search by being sensitive to uppercase and lowercase.
Choose whether you want to ignore accented characters using the Ignore Accents checkbox. This option will be of use to most non-english users, where it is convenient to search for the same character regardless of it having an accent mark (i.e. searching for 'senor' would find 'señor', searching for 'eric' would find 'éric', etc.)
Once you have selected your search options, tap the Find button. FindHack displays the result window and starts the search immediately.
To review the last search results, tap the Last Results buttons.
5.2 The Results dialog
The results dialog in FindHack 4 has been completely rewritten. It is different from the built-in Find's results dialog. Here are the main differences:
- Continuous search: the results are displayed in a scrollable list with a scrollbar. The search process continues on after the first page of results, though you can tap on a match at any time. This will interrupt the search and directly go to that match.
- Use the scrollbar to scroll back and forth in the search results.
- Each application header now displays the number of matches found for this application.
- The total number of matches is displayed in the bottom right corner of the dialog.
- While the search is running, a Pause button is visible at bottom of the screen, next to the Done button. Tap the Pause button to suspend the search. The button then reads Resume. Tap Resume to resume the search. This allows you to suspend a search operation, and if you tap Done and later come back to the Last Search Results, you will be shown only what was found until you stopped the search.
In addition to these changes, the results list only shows those applications containing matches for your search. As in previous versions of FindHack, applications with no match are not displayed at all.
Tip: You can quickly navigate the results using either the space / backspace Graffiti strokes, or the 5-way navigation pad's Left and Right arrows on Palm Tungsten handheld:
- Use the pad's Left move, or Graffiti's backspace (
) stroke to go to the beginning of results for the application whose result is on the first line, or to the results for previous application if the first line in the list if an application header.
- Use the pad's Right move, or Graffiti's space stroke (
) to go to the beginning of results for the next application.
There are many ways to use FindHack in a productive fashion:
- Enter your preferred friends/relations names in your favorites to quickly find their phone number from any application; place keywords in important data in your applications and set these keywords as favorites in FindHack.
- Carefully place keywords in important and interrelated data in various applications in your handheld. Using favorites, you can now quickly gain access to your data, whichever applications it is stored in!
- Use the wilcards to quickly find people you don't remember the name details (i.e. enter the first and last parts of the name, with a '*' in the middle).
- Take advantage of the '!' wildcard to search words "beginning with...". For example, use it to quickly find phone numbers, names, etc.
- Sometimes when you download applications from the web, your handheld suddenly starts crashing when you do a Find. Be smart! Use an Applications Set to exclude the last apps you installed on your handheld and find the culprit. This will save you many hours of head scratching.
This problem has been tracked to be related to an old
version of McPhling, the excellent utility
by Mike McCollister. Please install a recent
version of McPhling (5.11 or later) and the
problem will disappear.
This problem comes from the way FindHack redisplays the found items when scrolling. Please contact the developers of the application that incorrectly displays its results, and tell them to look at FindHack and its Developer Information documentation.
FindHack's powerful search options work only if applications use the standard Palm OS services to perform the find. Some applications have a custom, proprietary way of doing a search because they store data in a specific way. FindHack cannot help provide the extended search options to these applications.
FindHack needs a bit more memory than the original Find function in the handheld. When you tap the Find button, FindHack first checks how much memory remains in the current application, and if it considers it is not enough, it directs you to the original Find dialog.
Applications sometimes crash on Find. There are several steps you can take to solve this problem:
This problem may occur if an application allows you to search in private items when in "Hide Private Data" mode. FindHack cannot prevent an application from doing so because it has no control over which items the application looks into. You should report the problem to the author of the application.
Yes.
While this is possible, it is not advisable. When enabled, FindHack locks itself into main memory, keeping a copy of the application on the Palm. This means that even if you store the application on a removable card, once activated FindHack will be present on your Palm in addition to the copy on the card.
In some applications, a "*" wildcard search result will only highlight the same number of characters that were used in the search, not the whole word or those actual digits that were found. This is because some applications do not strictly follow the rules of Palm OS and do not use the information that FindHack reports to them to highlight the found text. I recommend that you contact the application developers and let them know about the problem. This reveals a flaw in their application, not in FindHack.
Each application is responsible for responding to the FIND command that FindHack (and the built-in Find) sends to it. If your application does not, please contact the developers of the application and request that they add support for the sysAppLaunchCmdFind command.
FindHack is a $14.95 shareware product with a 30-day trial period. After this period, you will need to register your copy of FindHack to be able to continue using it.
To obtain your registration code, you will need to provide the Handheld ID for your handheld. This handheld ID is displayed in FindHack's About Box. To open the About Box, tap your handheld's menu icon, then select About FindHack. After purchasing the software, you will receive an e-mail instructing you to go to the FindHack Support Web Site and to enter your handheld ID.
Enter the handheld ID exactly as it appears in FindHack's About Box on your handheld.This screenshot shows where on your handheld screen the handheld ID appears.
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To purchase FindHack online, please go to:
Florent Pillet Web Store (http://perso.wanadoo.fr/fpillet/store.html)
If there is any improvement you would like, please send your suggestions to Florent Pillet (e-mail: Florent.Pillet@wanadoo.fr). Registered users are notified by e-mail when a new version is available. Also, please remember to send any e-mail address change to the author if you want to continue receiving update e-mails.
Your e-mail and address and user information is kept as confidential data. It is not given nor sold to anyone.
Once you obtain your registration code, open FindHack's About box and enter the registration code (which consists of three series of numbers, separated by dashes) into the Regist. Code field of the About box.
9.1 Acknowledgements
Many thanks to the people who helped me bring FindHack 4.0 to life. I wish to thank the beta testers who helped find problems before the software was released to the public. In alphabetical order: A. Nurhan Becidyan, Ben Combee, Bruce Douglass, David Kendall, Andreas Linke, Darell Long, Daniel Morais, Mikael Pertot, Wolfgang Scheele, Emett Simpson, Stefan Staub, Rick Stockton, Stephen Tomback, Scott Wieder. Thanks to Christian Robert for the logo and icons.
9.2 Other products
You can find links to other products I developed on my main web page, http://perso.wanadoo.fr/fpillet
Have problems accessing special characters in Graffiti? Can't get mathematical symbols? Check out SymbolHack, a nice add-on that gives you easy access to a palette with hard-to-type characters!
If you're looking for somewhere to store your serial numbers, check out DataShield, which I developed for Ultrasoft, the makers of Ultrasoft Money and Ultrasoft Checkbook).
FindHack 4.0.5 (July, 2003)
- Search speed improvements for some devices
- Most non-roman languages can now be searched ignoring case (i.e. useful for Cyrillic and Hebrew). This is not implemented for Japanese and Chinese yet.
- FindHack now makes the distinction between single quote (') and double quote (")
- Fixed a problem with the recent searches list: once the list was full, only the last search would be remembered.
- Fixed a bug where some latin characters (like the German umlaut and many accented characters) would not be found on some devices.
FindHack 4.0.4 (April, 2003)
- Added support for quick navigation within the application results using Graffiti Space and BackSpace strokes, or the Palm Tungsten's 5-way pad Left and Right moves.
- Fixed remaining problems with spurious "Results changed..." messages when scrolling the results list.
FindHack 4.0.3 (April, 2003)
- Fixed several problems with spurious "Results changed..." messages when scrolling the results list
- Find in current text field: if the cursor is located at the end of the text (which is the default when opening an attached note in the built-in applications), search from the beginning of the text.
- Fixed problems when results changed, immediately performing a new search did not display the application names and resulted in blank lines when tapping results
FindHack 4.0.2 (April, 2003)
- Favorites and In pop-up menus now show as many entries as the screen can contain
- FindHack now tries to detect whether changes occured in the results set when reviewing the Last Result
- Fixed appearance problems in the results display with some applications
- Fixed display problems in results on HandEra 330
- Fixed result highlighting problems on recent monochrome devices
- Fixed other search and results redisplay bugs
- Fixed problem with DocumentsToGo, SheetToGo and other applications hanging on Find
- FindHack Storage database is now properly backup up by HotSync
- Fixed problem with Favorites' application set not being used when selecting a favorite in the menu (even though the app set name appeared in the pop-up)
FindHack 4.0.1 (April, 2003)
- Fixed a problem with the Results dialog being tiny on HandEra 330
- Fixed a potential crash after installing the software on handhelds with Palm OS 3 and Palm OS 4
- Fixed a problem with performing a search in All/Built-Ins/Current apps after searching in an application set: the first time, the applications set would be used instead of the user-selected location.
FindHack 4.0 (April, 2003)
- Complete rewrite of FindHack to support Palm OS 5 devices.
- Unlimited favorites
- Unlimited application sets
- Configurable number of memorized recent search terms
- Any Term / All Terms search modes
- Scrollable results list
- Results are being remembered and can be reviewed
FindHack 3.8 (January, 2002)
- Added the "Ignore Accents" option for all the languages that commonly use accents. This is what most users will want most of the time.
- Changes the "Case Sensitive" checkbox to "Ignore Case" to stay coherent with the "Ignore Accents" option.
- Can now use the arrows to scroll the apps list up/down.
- Fixed a potential crash problem introduced in FindHack 3.7.
- Fixed a bug where "permanent" search strings would not appear if the first permanent string was empty.
- Fixed some appearance problems with Japanese and Chinese Palm OS.
FindHack 3.7 (December, 2001)
- Added support for HandEra 330 devices
- Compatible with Palm OS 4.1
- Fixed potential bug when searching application containing multiple languages
- Fixed bug that could sometimes trigger an error alert, whereas no error existed
- Fixed bug where find in "text" would not find an occurence at the position of the cursor (Paul Nevai)
- Improved support for nordic diacritics (Karl-Koenig Koenigsson)
FindHack 3.6 (July, 2001)
- Added French translation
- Moved the Graffiti Shift Indicator in the Find dialog to prevent conflicts with Paul Nevai's LapTopHack.
- Fixed minor bug where 'Use Wildcards' checkbox status would not always be kept across finds.
- Fixed text highlighting problem when not using wildcards: the selection could be off by one character.
- Fixed character problems on Japanese Palm&nsbp;OS with help texts and "Matches For" string.
- Fixed search problems when at beginning of a string.
FindHack 3.5 (April, 2001)
- The Find dialog's layout has been revamped, thanks to Brandon Zylstra for the new design
- A new option to perform case-sensitive searches has been added
- A new wildcard has been added: '!'. If the search string starts with !, the string must be found at the beginning of a word (after a space, tab, line feed or '-').
- When searching, FindHack now only keeps on display the list of apps which have matches to display.
FindHack 3.0 (May, 2000)
- FindHack can now look for the next occurence of a text in the current text field.
- Added an "Applications To Search" dialog box in the FindHack settings to let the user configure which apps to search in. You can now tune your Find for maximum speed and efficiency!
- New option for users of non-roman extensions to Palm&nsbp;OS: checking the 'Non-Roman Text' box disables FindHack's accent-insensitive/case-insensitive search, letting you search text written in non-roman languages like Japanese, Hebrew, Arabic, etc.
- Fixed a bug where unchecking the 'Use Wildcards' box would not find occurences of words containing accented/european characters.
- Several other minor bug fixes for compatibility with new Palm&nsbp;OS releases (Palm&nsbp;OS 3.3 and Palm&nsbp;OS 3.5).
- FindHack can now run from Flash Rom (use a tool like TRG FlashPro or Brayder JackFlash to transfer the software to flash rom)
FindHack 2.8 (March 10th, 1998)
- Oopps! Inadvertently crashed the Phone Lookup function in 2.7. This is fixed in this release.
FindHack 2.7 (March 9th, 1998)
- Speed, speed, speed! FindHack's search method has been reengineered. The speed loss due to recent improvements in the software has been eliminated. FindHack now runs at roughly the same speed than the Palm's original Find.
FindHack 2.6 (End February 1998)
- New and improved search systems for even better compatibility with international characters.
- FindHack now detects if the PalmPilot is running J-OS (Japanese language enabler) and uses a different search method that produces accurate results on Japanese language.
- Circumvented a bug in the Phone Lookup function. Starting a Find from the Phone Lookup screen sometimes crashes the PalmPilot, even if FindHack is not installed. This is a bug in the address book. To alleviate this problem, FindHack now closes the Phone Lookup screen before displaying the Find dialog.
- Searching in 'Built-Ins' only does not search the current app anymore if it is not one of the built-in applications.
FindHack 2.5 (February 1998)
- Improved compatibility with international and accented characters.
- Added the * wilcard to match any sequence of characters
- Added a checkbox to disable use of wildcards (this allows you to find a '.', '*' or '?').
FindHack 2.1 (January 1998)
- Bug fixes
- Fixed a sporadic crash problem when displaying the "shareware" alert in the unregistered version.
- Fixed a display problem where after the second page of matches, all application headers had the "cont'd" word, even if they were not continued from the previous page.
- Tapping Stop during a find now pauses Find instead of closing the matches window.
- Improvements
- When tapping the 'Find' icon, the currently selected text is now copied and pasted to the Find field.
- The Edit menu has been reactivated (like in original Find)
FindHack 2.0 (December 1997)
- First release of this complete replacement of the Find function.
FindHack 1.0 (April 1997)
- FindHack 1.0 only improved searches, allowing to find part of a word.
FindHack is Copyright (c) 1997-2003 by Florent Pillet, All Rights Reserved.