How do I permanently exclude a group of files from my searches

Question

When I'm searching a set of files I want to be able to always exclude a certain group of files, e.g. DLL or EXE. I know I can type something like:

search;NOT:*.dll;*.exe

OR

search NOT (.dll OR .exe)

but I want to be able to just type:

search

and for FileLocator Pro to ALWAYS exclude the DLL or EXE file types. Is there a way to modify the Persistent Search Filters to add file types as well?

Answer 1

You can't do it with Persistent Search Filters but you could setup your own File Name preset. It's an undocumented feature but basically if you edit the file_preset.xml file you can create your own custom preset:

To add this new No EXE/DLL custom preset requires two steps.

Step 1 - Add preset to file_preset.xml

Open the file C:\Program Files\Mythicsoft\FileLocator Pro\config\file_preset.xml and add this at the bottom.

<preset>
    <id>noexedll</id>
    <langid>1000</langid>
    <dosexp>NOT:*.exe;*.dll</dosexp>
    <attribs>-d</attribs>
</preset>

The <dosexp>NOT:*.exe;*.dll</dosexp> section provides the 'persistent' filter to exclude any file with the extension .EXE or .DLL and the <attribs>-d</attribs> excludes all directories.

Step 2 - Add the language resource

Step 1 referenced the language resource 1000, which doesn't yet exist. This is what will be displayed in the UI. Find the language file you're using, e.g.

C:\Program Files\Mythicsoft\FileLocator Pro\config\lang-en.xml

and add this as the last language resource:

<res id="1000" text="No EXE/DLL" />

Now when you run FileLocator Pro you should see your custom preset. Anything entered in the File name field is now considered as a Boolean expression.