System Search

Use the System Search page of the Search window to perform a textual search of files by directory, on your hard drive. This enables you to search for files inside directories located outside of the project workspace. In addition, there are additional search choices including:

Choose Search > System Search to open the Search window and perform a directory defined textual search. The results are then shown in the System Search view. Some of the search behaviors and apperance are controlled by settings in the System Search preference panel.

Figure 1. System Search page in the Search window

Table 1. System Search page options
Item Explanation
Search string

Enter text into the Search string text box to search for specific strings within files. Leave empty if you are only looking for files by name and not content. You can control how the text is interpreted using these options:

  • Case sensitive — enable to make the search case sensitive
  • Regular expression — enable to use regular expression in the Search string text box
File name patterns Enter the file types to search for seperated by commas, or click Choose to select file types in the preset list in the Select Types dialog.
Folder

Enter text into the Folder text box or click Browse to search to search a specific folder. You can control how the folder search is conducted using these options:

  • Search subfolders — enable to recusively search subfolders in the selected folder for matching files
  • Search hidden files — enable to also search the folder/subfolders hidden files
Customize...

Specify which search tabs should appear in the Search window.

NOTE Use the Window > Customize Perspective > Commands page to hide specific commands you never use.

Other references