Sigerson: the name that Sherlock Holmes traveled under after narrowly escaping the clutches of Moriarty above Richenbach Falls. Also the Premier Sherlock Search Sets Manager!
The other Sherlock Sets Managers that I have seen, even the one by Apple, all work by moving the sherlock plugins in and out of the Sherlock plug-ins folder. With this technique it may still be necessary to check them all by hand each time and now that there are over 100 plug-ins this can be really time consuming! Sigerson works differently, leaving all your plug-ins where they belong and telling Sherlock which ones you want to be checked. This makes it possible to use Sherlock without running Sigerson first, all your plug-ins will always be available.
The sets popup menu lets you select from the search sets that you have created. It will always contain the defaults of "All On", "All Off", and "Sherlock Default".
The words field is identical to the one in Sherlock itself. This is where you enter your search criteria. For example "Does James Sentman have a web page?". Once you enter something in this field the "Sherlock" button will become active so that you can jump to Sherlock to perform your search.
HINT! Control-Click in the words field for a popup of the last 10 searches you entered.
The sites list, is similar to the sites list in Sherlock. It allows you to select which sites Sherlock is going to search for you. Click on a site to turn it on or off. You can also use the arrow up/down keys to move through the list and the space bar to select/deselect a site. Begin typing the name of a site to jump to it in the list.
HINT! Control-Click over a site name to pop-up a small window with more than you ever wanted to know about the plug-in, like who the author is and what site is it actually contacting.
A good place to start to create a new set is one of the three defaults. Since these cannot be altered as soon as you click on a site a new set will be created for you named "untitled". After you're done selected sites to search you can use the "Rename" button to give it a more descriptive name. If you want to create a set similar to one you've already created, use the "Duplicate" button to make a copy. If you want to change a custom set, just change the selections for it in the sites section, the changes will be saved when you exit. The "Delete" button should be self explanitory.
In the File menu you can also save the current state as a Sherlock search document for searching later in Sherlock.
HINT! in the Edit menu you can select Preferences to change the display font and size.
During testing it came to my attention that people with anti-aliasing turned on couldn't always read the fine print. So in keeping with the new Apple tradition of letting you mess with how things look, you may now change it.
Internation Support. The problem with international versions of the OS is that the Sherlock plug-in's folder has a different name and therefor cannot be found. Now if Sigersion cannot find the folder, it will ask you to locate it. If you select the wrong folder, you can go to Edit:Preferences and click on "Forget Search Site Folder". This has really never been tested outside of my dining room where my Mac is at the moment, if anyone uses this feature, or has problems with it please let me know.
If you have installed any other Sherlock Sets Managers please go into your system folder and move any sherlock plug-ins from the "Internet Search Sites (Disabled)" folder back into the active folder. Or use the program to activate them all. Sigerson doesn't work by moving these files.
Sigerson is Free! But it's not freeware, it's emailware. If you use Sigerson you must send me an email at sentman@wwa.com letting me know that all this effort wasn't in vain. Please put the word "Sigerson" in the subject line.
If Sherlock is already running when you start Sigerson, it will not come to the foreground but will begin it's search in the background. Click on Sherlocks window or select it from the applications menu to view the results. It is not necessary to quit and restart Sherlock as with other sets managers.
Sigerson crashes when I try to start it. If you have several hundred Sherlock plug-ins, it may be necessary to increase the memory allocated to Sigerson. If you have had to increase Sherlocks memory to hold them, then chances are you'll need to give some more to Sigerson as well.
Where can I get the latest version? New versions are always available on my web site: http://www.wwa.com/~sentman/ and may also be found on various internet shareware repositories. Why not use Sigerson to have Sherlock search them for you?
Feature Requests , Bug Reports, Praise and Incriminations are always welcome. Please send email to: sentman@wwa.com and be sure to include the word "Sigerson" in the subject line.
Problems? The most common problem that you may see is an error from the finder telling you that the search could not be opened. The remedy for this is to rebuild your desktop. Please try that before sending a bug report.
Guarantees? Sigerson is freeware, and therefore comes with no support or guarantees. What do you want for nothing? However it has been extensively tested and I've made every possible effort to make sure that you have no problems. Please let me know if it gives you any headaches.
Sigerson was written in REALBasic. www.REALBasic.com
I can't say enough good things about REALBasic. If you've ever had an itching to program your Mac, head on over to their web site and give the demo a try.
