The Opus Find tool has two main modes of operation; simple and advanced. The simple-mode Find tool lets you quickly search the current folder (or any location) for files or folders by name, date, size, type or by text they contain. The advanced-mode Find tool uses a Filter control to let you specify much more complex search queries. Using the advanced mode you can search based on attributes like image dimensions, audio bitrate, document author, etc.
Opus also supports an alternate search system - the integrated support for Windows Search lets you use the Windows search index to perform quick searches using a text field on the toolbar. You may find the indexed search is enough for your purposes - it will usually be quicker, although it doesn't provide as much control over the parameters of the search as the Opus Find tool.
To access the Opus Find tool, select the Find Files command from the Tools menu. The Find tool appears at the bottom of the Lister in the Utility Panel.
The top section of the Find panel lets you specify the location or locations to search. You can search one or more folders (or entire drives) at once by adding entries to the Find in list.
Each entry in the list corresponds with a folder to search. To add a folder to the list, double-click the Add folder to search item. You can edit a folder path in the list by double-clicking it (or select it and press F2 if you want to enter the path using the keyboard).
You can also use the Select Folders to Search (
) button on the toolbar - this displays a
folder selection dialog with checkboxes so you can select multiple folders
simultaneously. This button also has a drop-down attached to it that displays a
most-recently used list, which lets you select from your recent search
locations.
To remove a folder from the Find in list, select it and
click the Remove Folder (
) button.
The Reset Folder List (
) button
clears the folder list, and the Lock Folder (
) button locks the Find in
location to the folder displayed in the current file display. When
the folder is locked, the Find in list will automatically
reset to the current location whenever you navigate in the file
display.
The Refine checkbox becomes available after using the Find tool once and allows you to narrow down the results of a previous find. Refine is usually left off, in which case using the Find tool again will cause it to start from scratch and return everything below the Find In folders which matches your new criteria. On the other hand, if you turn on Refine and use the Find tool again then it will apply your new criteria on top of the previous results leaving you with only the things which match both your old and new criteria.
As an example of what Refine does, consider a folder that contains these files:
- Directory Listing.txt
- Directory Opus.txt
- Magnum Opus.txt
Asking for files with "Directory" in their names will give these two results:
- Directory Listing.txt
- Directory Opus.txt
If you then turn on Refine and ask for names containing "Opus" then you'll get just the file which matches both your original request ("Directory") and your new one ("Opus"):
- Directory Opus.txt
(Of course, you could have specified "Directory Opus" in the first place but there are times when you are not sure exactly what to look for or how many results you'll get back.)
On the other hand, if you turn off Refine and ask the tool to find files with "Opus" in their names, you'll get everything containing "Opus", regardless of what was done before:
- Directory Opus.txt
- Magnum Opus.txt
To the right of the Find in list are a number of options that control how Opus searches for files.
The bottom part of the Find panel is where select the mode (simple or advanced), and where you define the parameters of the search.
The mode can be selected using the tab control. Please see the Simple Find and Advanced Find pages for more information about the two modes. When you have defined your search parameters, click the Find button to begin the search.