KDE Plans 'Google-like' Search Capabilities

CoolFX writes "Developers of KDE have announced plans to simplify searching for files on the open-source Linux desktop environment by adding a Google-style search feature. The next version of KDE, which will either be called 3.4 or 4, is expected to include the new search feature... Aaron Seigo, a KDE developer, said the community has already been discussing and writing code for the new search engine at the KDE Community World Summit."

Comments

Re:Speaking of bloat...

[BenjyD]

Who said they're adding it to the windowing environment? They're not adding it to KWin.

It'll be part of KDE - where DE stands for Desktop Environment. KDE is much more than a window manager, it's an entire desktop system, so this is the perfect place to add it.

Re:How will this work?

[FlipmodePlaya]

I'm wondering why they're saying it's 'Google like'. Do they just mean 'search engine like', and got caught up in the brand name (like they do with the iPod so frequently)? Or is there something about it comparable only to a Google technique?

Google, and Tao

[ka9dgx]

Google couldn't exist without the internet, and HTML. The reason Google is so good is that they are the best on the planet (except maybe the NSA) at extracting metadata from the internet. The pagerank algorithm lives on links, which don't exist on most people's hard drives. Searching and indexing hard drives, like the "find" in Windows, isn't the same, isn't close, and is very likely to disappoint someone expecting Google quality results.

It's a whole system, the Google/InterNet/Authors... you can't have parts of it standing alone.

--Mike--

Re:How will this work?

[barcodez]

To many people google == search engine. The word is in the Oxford English Dictionary ffs. So like xerox, hoover and escalator the brand name has become (is becoming) the generic word too.

Beagle?

[marvin2k]

Please somebody tell me that they will cooperate with the Beagle project on this and don't reinvent the wheel yet again. It would be a real pain in the ass to have too indexes wasting your hd space which basically do the same thing.

Why???

[drmancini]

That's the main question ... in my opinion features like this should be developed as close to the FS as possible ... And if they want to create something like this on a higher level (meaning FS independent and all that stuff ...) why not just create a simple GUI for locate? I mean it's clearly a similar indexing feature and IMHO the work involved shold rather be invested in future FS development ...

Re:How will this work?

[Ignignot]

This is of course the kind of knee jerk reaction that any programmer would think of when confronted with the problem. You can already see it implemented in windows. Of course, every user's first reaction is to disable the searching because no one cares about fast searches of their computer, and everyone cares about their system resources. So this is a terrible tradeoff.

OTOH I think Hans Reiser has it right, just look at his vision. Built search from the filesystem up, and it will revolutionize how we think of data.

Background

[kris]

The article in N&T is based on ideas by Scott Wheeler (and Till Adam, and Aaron Seigo and others). See Beyond Hierarchical Data: Search and Meta Data as Fundamental Interface Elements, Scotts lecture on query-based interfaces at aKademy.

"Google like" here means just "searching", but the result will in fact be more like WinFS than Google in that it is using file data and file metadata to index and find things. Interface-wise expect more quicksearch bars like the one in Kmail 1.7 (KDE 3.3.0, Till Adam) and JuK (Scott Wheeler).

See also a Blog entry of mine (german language) in the same vein.

Re:Where are the breakthroughs?

[Seanasy]

I don't think Linux is a natural choice for breakthrough concepts in user interfaces. It is in lots of other areas and maybe in more basic research in UI but it's not user driven as much as OS X and Windows.

Both KDE and Gnome are good at constantly progressing, trying new things. And they're good at listening to users. But, I think they don't have the pressure/motivation and resources right now to come up with something truly novel.

I would guess that this partly because they're under some pressure to provide the functionality in OS X or Windows. They're playing catch-up almost constantly. Also, their flexibility seems to slow them down. There were big changes in Gnome 2.0 but they seemed more like a change in direction than movement forward. My impression of KDE is that they put most effort in the backend of the system where you're not likely to notice it. And both projects work hard to try to make everyone happy.

My impression of Apple is that Apple (Jobs) likes to think big picture and then throw lot of effort behind a handful of projects. The media hub picture spawned the iApps and iPod. The interface picture birthed Expose, Spotlight and that widget thing. MS seems to try to do (or at least promise) everything then implement it poorly, then keep plugging away at it until they get it right or give up. But they do get it right sometimes and they do try make things a 'better experience' for the user. I personally think they miss the mark more times than not because they burden their innovations with user-hostile elements like DRM.

OSS needs visionaries but to implement a vision you need everyone to get behind it. I think that's harder in OSS because visionaries seem a bit dictatorial. It's not impossible, I'm sure, but going from a mainly academic research project to something people can use is hard and probably needs a steady guiding hand.