Ulauncher/Albert File Search Extension

File and Directory search using Cache. Use a custom gitignore file (.albertignore2/.ulauncherignore) to ignore files and directories from cache, Use Unix style matching (wildcards) to search.

Albert Demo

Ulauncher Demo

Features

• Specify directories to search
  • Specify max depth if you want
• Specify directories and files to skip gitignore style
  • Works almost like gitignore
  • Nested gitignores override parrent if possible (see tests/template_structure and the .albertignore2 files in there).
    • e.g Ignore all hidden files in parent directory, unignore a hidden directory in a child ignore file.
• Search files really fast (unless scan index your whole system)
  • Search is scored based on
    • Unix style matching (preferred over the next one)
    • Word matching
    • File/Directory depth
• Tweak almost every setting
  • Icon Themes
  • Scan interval
  • Search threshold
  • Search character threshold
  • Max results returned

Contents

• Install for Ulauncher
• Install for Albert
• How to setup
• Examples
• Tests

Install for Ulauncher

Thus extension depends on pathspec.

Install it with:

pip install pathspec

Open Ulauncher go to Extensions > Add extension and paste https://github.com/tchar/ulauncher-albert-files

Install for Albert

Similarly to Ulauncher the same dependencies are are required.

To install the extension for Albert run

pip install pathspec
mkdir -p ~/.local/share/albert/org.albert.extension.python/modules/
git clone https://github.com/tchar/ulauncher-albert-files ~/.local/share/albert/org.albert.extension.python/modules/

Open albert, enable Python extensions and then enable the Files extension.

You can double click it to open module's location and edit __init__.py to edit your trigger by editing the __trigger__ variable.

The other settings can be editted in the settings.ini

How to Setup

Albert

If you ar using Albert open the extension location normally at ~/.local/share/albert/org.albert.extension.python/modules/ulauncher-albert-files/__init__.py and edit the trigger named __triggers__ to change the keyword

The file ~/.local/share/albert/org.albert.extension.python/modules/ulauncher-albert-files/settings.ini contains the settings

The extension can work in albert without keywords if you comment out the __triggers__ option, however if another extension has the keyword you type, Files won't trigger (see relevant issue)

Ulauncher

If you are using Ulauncher use the extension preferences.

Options

• Main Options
  • albert: Under [DEFAULT]
  • Scan Every Minutes: Interval to scan directories specified (default 2 minutes)
    • ulauncher: Scan interval in minutes
    • albert: SCAN_EVERY_MINUTES
  • Ignore filename: The filename to use as ignore
    • ulauncher: Name of ignore file
    • albert: IGNORE_FILENAME (default .albertignore2)
  • Search after Characters: Number of characters to skip before run searching (default 2, if set to 0 searches from first character, excluding keyword)
    • ulauncher: Characters to start searching after
    • albert: SEARCH_AFTER_CHARACTERS
  • Search Max Results: Maximum number of results to return (default 5)
    • ulauncher: Maximum Search Results
    • albert: SEARCH_MAX_RESULTS
  • Search theshold: Threshold value to keep or drop result (default 0.5, between 0.0 and 1.0)
    • ulauncher: Threshold to limit searches
    • albert: SEARCH_THRESHOLD
  • Icon Theme: The icon theme to use. Can be a path of a folder which contains images of icons named with the extension[.svg|.png|or any other image]. Built in icon themes are: square-o, classic, high-contrast, vivid. Default square-o
    • ulauncher: Name or Path of icon theme
    • albert: ICON_THEME
  • Use built in folder theme: If set to No/False it will try to fetch folder icons based on your gtk icon theme. If set to Yes/True it will use the built-in folder icons (default No/False)
    • ulauncher: Use built in folder theme
    • albert: USE_BUILT_IN_FOLDER_THEME
• Path options:
  • ulauncher: Directories to scan, as well as depth: Set a directory to scan in each line of the text area as follows:
    • Specify directory e.g (~/)
    • Optionally specify max depth (5 for example) to scan as (~/=5)
  • albert: You can view the settings_example.ini for another example. Specify as many [DIRECTORY] sections you want each starting with prefix DIRECTORY and some number or other character examples: [DIRECTORY1], [DIRECTORY2], [DIRECTORY_A], [DIRECTORY_B] etc. Each DIRECTORY section should have:
    • PATH=/some/path: An path in your system. You can use tilde (~) for your home
    • DEPTH=: Optionally a depth to scan the aforementioned directory up to. If not set or set to 0 it will scan

Examples

Use your keyword (default ?) and type something to search.

You can use normal matching: ? Downloads or ? A_file

You can use wildcard matching: ? *.png or ? some_file*.pdf The results are usually fast if you don't scan your whole filesystem

Tests

To run tests you need pytest

pip install pytest
pytest

The test runs against a template structured located in tests/template_structure. You can follow the .albertignore2 file along the template_structure to check what is ignored and what not.