Desktop Search
Posts relating to Windows Desktop Search (WDS)
In previous posts, I've been telling people to use the System.ItemDisplayPath and System.Filename to create the full filename. I also complained about some anomalies I had come across with the file paths. You see, there is no field that just contains the filename with path. My guess as to why this is the case, is that WDS is not just files -- it's also email, journal entries, contacts, and more. So the universal scheme is the URI, stored in the System.ItemUrl property. This is fine for the Windows Shell. I can invoke Shell.Execute on a URL and it launches perfectly...
My latest Coding 4 Fun article went live today. It uses GDI+ to create a screensaver showing your photos with a Polaroid-style frame. It was more work than I thought it would be, but I'm pretty pleased with the result. You can locate images based on a folder (with or without subfolders), or using keywords from Desktop Search. It works well and looks pretty cool! Link to Coding4Fun : Photo Screensaver
I've been saying to get the filename from Windows Desktop Search queries by combining the System.ItemFolderPathDisplay and System.ItemNameDisplay. This worked fine on my system, but I didn't realize that it might not work if you hide file extensions in Explorer. Apparently, ItemNameDisplay returns the filename minus the extension in this case (or at least I found this to be the case on Vista). The better choice is to use System.FileName. This returns the filename with extension regardless. You still don't get the path though -- for that, continue to use ItemFolderPathDisplay. So how do you combine them? Definitely don't just...