Tuesday, January 30, 2007 8:36 AM
My most recent Coding 4 Fun article has been up for a few weeks now, but I haven't gotten around to mentioning it yet! I wrote a neat little utility that uses the Windows Desktop Search index to provide auto-complete functionality for file names. As you start to type, it shows files across your local hard drives (and possibly network). The standard filesystem-based autocomplete (built-in to the TextBox) works based on matching the full paths, from left-to-right. This one is based on solely on filename, so will find files that even contain the string in the middle of the word. It's fairly quick, and will display a few properties from the index for the given file when you select it. Searching uses SQL queries against the OLE provider, and uses threading to accomplish searching-while-typing. No delays in the UI will be seen.
Article: Searching the Desktop
To index network (UNC) files, download the add-in from Microsoft.