Epub indexing?

[Gilles Karmasyn]

Hi,

I'm a happy foxtrot pro owner. Am I wrong or are epub files not indexed (except for their file names)?

If so, can we expect a foxtrot version that would index the epub format?

Thanks in advance for any answer.

GK

[FoxTrot Engineering]

Gilles Karmasyn wrote:

>I'm a happy foxtrot pro owner. Am I wrong or are epub files not indexed
>(except for their file names)?

FoxTrot relies on third-party "Spotlight metadata importers" to index file formats not natively supported; and to display found files in those formats, in a better way than a plain-text version, it also relies on third-party "Quick Look plugins".

Some epub applications may include these plugins; or may find them as independent plugins.

You may try these one, for example:

https://github.com/jaketmp/ePub-quicklook/releases


Jérôme - CTM Engineering


---------------------------------------------------------------------
"Being an old school Mac user, to me searching for a file is the good
old Command-F. I never liked Sherlock and never really saw the need for
fancy search software, but FoxTrot has made me think again."
FoxTrot Personal Search review on www.softpedia.com

Download a demo version from www.foxtrot.ch
---------------------------------------------------------------------

[Gilles Karmasyn]

Hi,

Thank you very much for you help. I was able to have my ebooks indexed with the Spotlight importer you pointed me to. Unfortunately, the Quick Look plugin associated only displays the cover and some metadata, but does not allow to glimpse at the occurences of the searches strings in the preview mode: you have to open the epub file in an epub reader and search to the string again. Not a practical way of doing things...

BUT!

After much searching, thanks to the ever competent Tidbots team, I was directed to the Musaraki ebook reader, which, for 9€ offers its own epub Quick Look plugin that does exactly the job: (pre)viewing the *whole* epub content in a scrollable window (perfectly fitted for foxtrot preview). 

What I did: I displayed the Musaraki content package to grab the plugin "EPUB.qlgenerator" in its "QuickLook' folder and copy it to the /Library/Quick Look folder (a step that might not be required if the Musaraki QL plugin is registered to the OS one way or the other, but I did not check).

It seems this is the only epub QL plugin able to do that job. Surprising. It was last updated in 2015 though and might become obsolete one day... I'm not sure if this is within Foxtrot scope, but wouldn't it be nice to find a way to "secure" this plugin perenity...? WIth the progress of the epub format, Foxtrot would be offering added value by providing efficient epub preview...

Again: thank you for your answer. My problem is neatly solved.

Sincerely yours,

GK

[Ajk Sanders]

That's a very useful hint, thanks very much! I had just got used to the fact that epubs  simply just didn't get indexed, I never thought about possible solutions. Thank you again!

[Darren Ingram]

I am very pleased to have found this thread by a web search!

It may be a silly question, but what format should I tell FT to use for epub with this plugin?  I want to fully index my Calibre database, but I don't want all the scrap like OPF and other index type files. With the plugin, there is no specific epub data type.

I second the request that FT has this common data format as a built-in data type. Even if you licence the plugin and we need to acquire it at an extra cost.

Thanks, Darren

[FoxTrot Engineering]

Darren Ingram wrote:

>It may be a silly question, but what format should I tell FT to use for
>epub with this plugin? I want to fully index my Calibre database, but I
>don't want all the scrap like OPF and other index type files. With the
>plugin, there is no specific epub data type.

You can just add your Calibre library to the "custom locations" list of your index; the .opf files will also get indexed (by filename only), but this is usually not an issue.

You can check "only index filename when indexing content", in the "indexed data" tab, to avoid this. In this case, you may choose to have a separate index dedicated to Calibre, with this option enabled, and keep indexing all filenames for your other indices. Also, you can disable all filetypes except "documents" in the "index contents of files" list, to also avoid indexing jpg covers etc.

Jérôme - CTM Engineering


---------------------------------------------------------------------

"I have a variety of indexing and searching tools: Spotlight, PathFinder,
EagleFiler. Foxtrot is just head and shoulders ahead of everything else
in capability. It finds every instance of a search term within a document
and highlights them and allows you to jump from instance to instance and
even gives a popup menu that shows all the instances in a short context."
FoxTrot Personal Search user comment on www.versiontracker.com