Search using Caja

Hello,

Something bugged me for the longest time since i’m using Ubuntu Mate : What am i supposed to ask in Caja search bar, in order to recursively display everything in a targeted location ?

I tried * and . (just like i would do it in windows explorer) but nothing happened.

I found no user’s manual either.

Your help would be appreciated.

You mean unfold the whole tree?
Don’t think you can do that automatically.
If you mean hidden files and such, use CTRL+h

I just tried a search, and it located all files and folders recursively from the current location. I’m using 17.10

Thanks for your answers.

Yes i meant displaying everything inside the targeted location (folders, sub-folders and files within)

ie. i’m going in /home/username/music/, hit search button, then choose file type, then “any file type”.

The search won’t start with an empty field (eventhough i asked “any file types”) so i enter something in the search field, like “*” or my lousy attempts " *. *"

The search engine does something obviously (high cpu usage, hourglass spinning) but that’s it…

Obviously i must be missing something really easy …

Hi @smartmeister. The Caja search tool could use some improvement as I don’t think it has changed at all from the original Gnome2 days.

I find it does not use wildcards or regular expression. Nor does it include hidden files and folders (something I added to a recent wishlist here). It also lacks a location in the results (properties of a result has the location path).

In summary it’s a simple file text match looking for one text string and that string may include “.” as a matching character and not a wildcard.

There’s a separate MATE Search Tool in the menus that can do a much more powerful search when needed. I usually make a hotkey for it.

HTH

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That’s good to know !

Caja search function is probably not the right tool for the job, i’m glad you suggested something better suited for my needs.