Welcome to SpeedSearch. This dialog has some useful tips for using SpeedSearch. If you turn Tips off, it is available from the File menu.
SpeedSearch has extensive Balloon Help.
You can start a search by pressing the Return key.
You can stop a search with the Command-Period key combination.
Using regular expressions is a powerful way to perform searches. See the SpeedSearch ReadMe file or consult a reference for help on this topic.
You can insert a generic regular expression pattern into the search string field using the popup-menu located next to the Regular Expression checkbox.
You can insert a Tab character into the search string field using the popup-menu located next to the Regular Expression checkbox.
You can search one or more entire volumes using the “Select Start Volumes…” command in the Search menu.
You can change the width used to display file names in the search results area by clicking and dragging the separator next to the Match heading.
If you have the Drag Manager installed, you can set the Start Folder by dragging a folder from the Finder and dropping it on the Start Folder Button.
You can set the start folder to the parent folder of the current start folder by pressing the Shift key and clicking the Start Folder Button.
When the Ignore Case, Entire Word ar Regular Expression boxes are checked, searching takes longer. Check these boxes only when necessary.
You can open a file in the search results area by pressing the Command key and double-clicking.
You can also open a file selected in the search results area using the Command-Tab key combination.
You can open the enclosing folder of a file in the search results area by pressing the Option key and double-clicking.
You can iconize the main search window using the Iconize command in the File menu. You can also do this by pressing the Option key and clicking on the Start Folder Button.
If you know what you’re searching for is in a file whose name ends with a certain extension (e.g., “.h” or “.c”), you can speed up a search by limiting the files that get searched using the Search File Names popup-menu.
When performing a search that you expect will produce a lot of matches, you can speed up the search by as much as 50% by turning off offscreen drawing (in the Preferences Dialog) and turning off Autoscroll While Searching (in the main window).
When Autoscroll While Searching is checked, you can suspend autoscrolling by manually scrolling. You can re-enable autoscrolling by manually scrolling to the bottom of the search results.
SpeedSearch can search files in Macintosh, DOS and UNIX formats, all transparent to the user.
In the Preferences and Modify Color Schemes Dialogs, pressing the Option key while clicking a color swatch changes the cursor to an eyedropper, allowing you to grab any color from the screen.
When a search is complete, you can find text in the search results area using the Find and Find Again commands in the Edit menu.
If you have the Drag Manager installed, you can use drag and drop to copy text from the search results area.
If you have the Drag Manager installed, you can copy a URL from the About Box using drag and drop by pressing the Shift key before clicking.
If you have chosen an application to open files in that supports the 'GoLn' Apple Event (e.g., the CodeWarrior IDE), the file will be opened with the insertion point positioned at the line selected in the results area.
SpeedSearch can search files of any size.
Items in the Start Folder Favorites popup-menu appear disabled when they cannot be found (e.g., the folder is on or is a dismounted volume). SpeedSearch updates this menu whenever a volume is mounted.
You can save search results to a file as either TEXT or in a format that can be loaded into SpeedSearch.
When search results are displayed, you can toggle between the search results and search string fields by pressing the Tab key.
You can search custom file sets by creating a folder containing aliases of the files you want to search and checking the Search File Aliases checkbox in the main window.
When the progress bar is enabled, file counts are computed and cached the first time a folder is searched. On subsequent searches in the same folder, it is not necessary to count files, so searching begins immediately.
You can find the latest information about SpeedSearch on the World Wide Web at
