- Settings file name: Preferences are stored as
findhelper_settings.jsonunder~/.FindHelper/(wassettings.json). - Windows monitoring: Default USN journal queue cap raised from 10000 to 20000 buffers (~1.25 GB), so filesystem bursts absorb more before reader backpressure.
- Windows monitoring / quit hang: Closing the app with a full USN queue no longer waits to apply thousands of pending journal buffers.
Stop()discards the backlog so “Stopping…” returns promptly. - Windows monitoring / delete-rename storms: Each USN buffer now applies create/delete/rename/size-invalidate under one
FileIndexexclusive lock instead of one lock per event, so the queue can drain faster and search is less starved on Windows SRWLOCK.
- Full Path column: Shows the complete path again (directory + filename). Leading ellipsis still keeps the trailing name visible when the column is narrow. Path-field and
/filter match highlighting now covers the filename portion of this column as well as the directory. - Extension column match highlighting: When the Extensions filter is active (
txt;pdf;…), matching Extension cells are tinted like Name/Path matches so you can see why the row passed the allowlist. Name/Path//queries do not paint the Extension column (those hits already appear in Name).
- Match highlighting: Path-field queries also highlight matching text in the Name column when those literals appear in the filename (for example
pp:**Monkey*pdfonSuperMonkeyReport.pdf). Works for all Path query types (substring, glob,rs:,pp:, etc.)./Filter in results still overrides both columns.
- Results table match highlighting: Matched text in the Name and Full Path columns is highlighted so you can see why a row matched. Covers plain substring,
fz:fuzzy, globs,rs:regex,pp:/ PathPattern literal runs, and/“Filter in results”. Highlighting follows the Name or Path field for that column (or the active/filter for both). See Search Help for a short guide.
- Descendant Files / folder Size:* After index inserts or deletes, aggregated folder stats were stuck on a permanent
FolderSizeAggregatorcache (CancelPendingalone). They now refresh when the index membership changes, at most every 5 minutes (no requirement that the index stop changing first), so bulk USN create/delete does not trigger continuous full-index rescans. - Search status / results: Completed searches are applied before auto-refresh or debounced re-search in the same frame, so results are no longer skipped when a new search starts immediately (which could leave Status: Searching… or an empty table).
- Clear All: Fully cancels attribute loading and folder-size work, discards pending worker results, and resets search session flags so Clear All cannot leave stale rows or late background writes.
- Search completeness: Parallel search workers clamp chunk ranges to the live index size after path-buffer compaction, avoiding silently dropped result chunks.
- Search stability: Workers copy result path strings under the index lock before unlock, so path-buffer growth during USN updates cannot leave dangling path views (crash / use-after-free risk on Windows).
- Windows monitoring: Prefer close-time USN journal reads with action-bit filtering; soft-delete no longer falls back to record-number root resolution that could evict live indexed files. When CREATE and DELETE share one close record, DELETE wins.
- Windows monitoring: Soft-delete cascade only follows directory parents (not file IDs mistaken for MFT parents), reducing accidental mass removals.
- Windows monitoring / UI responsiveness: File content changes (
DATA_*) invalidate cached size in memory instead of callingGetFileSizeon the journal thread, so filesystem bursts no longer stall the USN queue and collapse FPS. Sizes load lazily when shown; filter attribute I/O is capped under backlog. - Windows monitoring: After a failed initial population, the journal processor is stopped cleanly (no stuck lifetime wait on the queue). Corrupt MFT enumeration no longer skip-ahead into phantom file records; a disabled or deleting journal is treated as a hard integrity failure (not a silent healthy-looking retry loop). Concurrent delete during rename/move no longer latches a false integrity error.
- USN sessions: Periodic folder recrawl is not armed after a USN-primary index build, so a saved crawl folder can no longer wipe a full-volume index and replace it with a smaller folder crawl.
- Settings: Mid-session saves (theme, filters, etc.) keep the live window size and position instead of writing stale geometry from an older settings snapshot.
- Windows builds / tests: Debug output and
run_testshonor the selected Visual Studio configuration (--config), so Debug binaries and tests are no longer built/run against the wrong config.
- Help / results table: What's new and the Descendant Files* column tooltip document the cached semantics and ~5-minute refresh while the index is changing.
- Metrics window: Queue backlog / buffers-dropped status stays on screen (warning color only when elevated) instead of flashing in and out; Remove() diagnostics are shown as separate metric rows.
- Windows monitoring diagnostics: Important logs for journal wrap during population and for rename events that only carry
RENAME_OLD_NAME(no matchingNEW_NAME).
- Results table paths: Drive-root files (e.g.
C:\file.txt) again show a correct parent path (C:\//) instead of a blank or truncated Path column; incremental “filter in results” uses the same directory split. - Windows monitoring: Files and folders moved to the Recycle Bin are removed from the index immediately (including descendants under deleted folders), instead of lingering until the bin is emptied.
- Search filters: With size/time filters off, or when file attributes are already loaded, results no longer flash the full unfiltered list for one frame before the filtered view appears. Deferral still applies when filters need lazy attribute loads (e.g. cloud-backed files on Windows).
- Metrics window: Long metric lines wrap instead of overflowing; Remove() diagnostics tooltip shows readable text; window always shows a vertical scrollbar.
- Results table: Name column shows a folder or file icon beside each row (open-folder for directories, sticky-note for files). Open, delete, copy, and drag-and-drop still use the real filename and full path.
- Dependencies: ImGui updated to v1.92.8-docking (Test Engine aligned).
- Windows indexing: Removes phantom top-level paths caused by broken NTFS parent chains (e.g. stray
C:\<name>entries from incomplete.gitparent linkage). Orphan subtrees with genuinely missing parents are pruned after path recompute. - Windows indexing: Full-drive indexing no longer ends with an empty index when the implicit NTFS volume root (MFT record 5) was never inserted during USN enumeration.
- Windows paths / sizes: Hardened wide-string → UTF-8 conversion (embedded nulls, terminator handling) for more reliable paths and on-demand size loading.
- Search: Case-insensitive SIMD fast path now validates ASCII on the full haystack before matching.
- Windows logging: Console allocation runs in Debug builds only (no extra console in Release).
- Windows CI / tests:
run_testsnow builds all test executables beforecteststarts.
- Search: Shared matchers and search context across workers, narrower index locking, regex prefilter improvements, extension-filter lookup, SIMD gating by case sensitivity, and smoother incremental result merge growth.
- Sort / attributes: Batched background size and modification-time I/O with shorter index lock hold during apply.
- USN indexing: Reuses a thread-local UTF-8 buffer when converting MFT filenames during initial enumeration.
- UI: Less per-frame string formatting and allocation in hot paths.
- Results selection:
SelectionStateextracted from the results table for clearer ownership. - Search: Centralized pattern-matcher creation; dead helper removed; regression tests updated.
- Tests: Shared helpers for
FileIndexSearchStrategyandFolderSizeAggregatorcoverage. - Bootstrap: Windows startup exception taxonomy aligned with Linux.
- Sonar-driven cleanups in tests and
GuiState.
- Search results: Match lists are applied when a search completes (single handoff to the UI). The previous partial-result streaming path has been removed so behavior is simpler and easier to reason about.
- Parallel search: The app always uses the hybrid parallel schedule. Alternate load-balancing modes and their settings / UI controls are removed so Windows, macOS, and Linux behave the same.
- Settings window: Closing the window with the frame close control no longer triggers an extra settings save from the render path (saves still happen from explicit actions such as Save).
- Auto-refresh / results table: Less flicker when the index changes often, including when sorting by Size or Last modified during auto-refresh.
- Settings save: Failures while writing settings are handled more safely instead of failing silently.
- Thread pool sizing: Comparison logic now uses live settings so overrides behave consistently.
- USN / index maintenance: Follow-up reliability work around journal queue handling and integrity signaling (including a fix so routine size updates do not latch “integrity” errors).
- USN journal queue: Standalone module with unit tests for queue behavior.
- Public design notes updated for hybrid-only parallel search; former interleaved strategy material is kept as historical / archived context only.
- Regression and unit-test cleanups (including ImGui Test Engine cases) aligned with the streamlined search pipeline.
- Windows indexing reliability: Improved handling for USN journal buffer-loss scenarios so index integrity issues are surfaced more consistently.
- Settings window stability: Minor cleanup in window-open handling to reduce edge-case risk.
- USN coverage: Added focused unit tests around USN queue behavior.
- Reduced complexity in regex helper code to make future maintenance safer and easier.
- Simplified parts of async-sort state handling for better readability.
- Updated lint configuration to better match project naming conventions and reduce false positives.
- Regex search pre-filter:
rs:patterns now extract the longest required literal substring at matcher-creation time and reject non-matching filenames with a fast SIMD substring check before invoking the regex engine. Common patterns such asrs:\.pdf$(literal.pdf) andrs:^report(literalreport) skipstd::regex_searchfor the vast majority of files, reducing per-file cost from ~1 µs to ~20 ns on mismatches. Patterns with top-level alternation (|) or pure character-class patterns (\d{4}) correctly bypass the pre-filter.
- Regex pre-filter regression suite (
RegexSearchPrefilterTests): 30 test cases / 70 assertions coveringMatchPattern,CreateFilenameMatcher, and end-to-endSearchAsyncWithDatafor extension anchors, prefix anchors, alternation, character-class patterns, case-sensitivity boundaries, and the critical case-insensitive uppercase-extension scenario (ANNUAL_REPORT.PDFmust matchrs:\.pdf$). ExtractRequiredLiteralunit tests added toStdRegexUtilsTests: oneTEST_CASEper distinct branch — anchors, escaped literals, character-class escapes,[...]character classes, dot quantifiers, top-level alternation, groups, optional/required plain chars, optional/required escaped chars, and longest-run selection.
- Sonar-driven cleanups:
UIThreadOwned<T>enforces UI-thread write confinement;AsyncSortStatemerges dual-bool with a typedSortReadyStateenum;ResultPoolOwnerenforces pool-lifecycle ordering;RenderApplicationControlsrelocated with documented contracts. - Thread pool worker lambda extracted into a named loop helper (Sonar S1188 / S107).
- UI-thread marking and safety assertions added across platforms.
- Settings window: reopens re-centered on the main window.
- Settings: mode-specific helper text added to the UI Mode selector.
- Theme: accent tones and table-header contrast rebalanced.
- Search history rows: two-line layout with right-aligned hover actions and relative timestamps.
- Welcome panel: replaces the older
EmptyStatecomponent; history row layout and ImGui cursor bounds corrected. - Windows: application keeps the system display awake while running.
- UI mode load: legacy
simplifiedUIkey no longer overridesuiModewhen both are present in settings. - Index path access:
PathAccessorview methods replaced withGetPathCopy()to eliminate dangling-view risk.
- Search: setup exceptions in
StaticChunkingStrategyandHybridStrategytask lambdas are now caught; prevents silent thread-pool task failure on bad index state. - USN monitoring: index-integrity latch with status-bar notice when journal wrap or queue drop is detected.
- Unified Search History: Empty-state Search History panel with pinned and recent queries, persisted to
search_history.json. Pin / unpin the last completed search (Ctrl/Cmd+P), rename and delete entries (with confirmation), and per-row actions for discoverability. Zero-result manual searches are recorded so they can be pinned or reopened. Replaces the older saved/recent combo and footer flows; Help shortcuts were updated to match (e.g. Pin search instead of legacy save wording). - Windows diagnostics: Optional minidump generation on unhandled exceptions, with safer crash-dump path handling.
- Empty state: Show all indexed items is aligned with the other example chips for consistent styling.
- Metrics window: Toggled from Settings; the dedicated CLI flag for opening metrics was removed.
- Results table: Folder file-count column renamed to Descendant Files* with a header tooltip explaining the value is cached and may lag the live file system.
- Logging: Log file name is derived from the executable name.
- USN monitoring: FSCTL 995 is treated as graceful cancellation instead of a fatal control error.
- Windows / search stability: Hardening against crashes during auto-refresh and in the streaming / incremental search path: consistent results batch invalidation, ClearResultPool-style pool lifecycle, UI-thread-only commits for async sort staging, sort cancellation ordering before waiting on attribute futures, streaming collector lifetime across UI polling, thread-safe error strings (no cross-thread dangling
string_view), and safer path-pool remap / pending-batch bounds. - Results handoff: Folder-size background work for the previous result set is cancelled before applying a new one.
- Settings: Load/save merge behaves correctly when sidecar JSON omits expected array keys.
- Build / CI: MSVC linking (BuildHistoryParams), Application constructor signature consistency, and GitHub Actions version pin fixes for workflows.
- Sonar-driven cleanups (search history, sort UI, crash handler); Cursor rules for async ownership / lifetime and crash triage discipline.
- Help → About: Startup command-line arguments (excluding the program path) are now displayed under About, making it easy to verify the runtime launch context from within the UI.
- Saved searches: Extracted to a dedicated
saved_searches.jsonfile alongsidesettings.json, keepingsettings.jsonfocused on scalar preferences. LegacysavedSearchesembedded insettings.jsonis automatically migrated on first load. - Concurrent-instance safety: On every settings save, both saved-search and recent-search collections are merged from disk (not just when the in-memory list is empty). Disk-only entries are appended; name-matched saved searches keep the in-memory (local) value; recent searches are deduplicated by full equality and capped at the configured maximum.
- Windows CI:
run_testsCMake target now passes-C <config>toctest, fixing test runs from the Developer Command Prompt.
- Natural-language / Gemini: Recent searches persist the NL field and show it in empty-state Recent searches tooltips; Saved searches combo shows the same text in tooltips when present.
- ImGui Test Engine: Regression coverage for the # Files results column (fixture counts, data-driven polling).
- Status bar: Version removed from the left cluster (still in Help → About); indeterminate busy bar renders more smoothly and covers Gemini calls, cloud attribute loading, and progressive total-size work.
- Windows indexing: MFT metadata reading is toggled with
--mft-metadata-reading=true|false(default true) instead of a CMake option. - Documentation: Stable paths and DRY guide under
docs/for published snapshots; outdated internal task markdown removed.
- Windows: Results-table shell drag-and-drop advertises copy only so Explorer does not default to move on same-volume drops.
- Path patterns: Normalisation when collapsing
**/sequences.
- Sonar-driven cleanups (CLI, MFT/index logging, Help, StatusBar, search-strategy tests); deduplicated helpers in load balancing, Help rendering, ImGui shortcut/clipboard tests, and folder-size tests;
constexprfor eligible static UI/test tables.
- Results table: # Files column — for each folder row, shows the recursive count of non-directory files under that directory (enable it from the column picker; hidden by default). Shows … while the count is still computing and – for file rows. Export CSV and Ctrl+Shift+X (Windows/Linux) / Cmd+Shift+X (macOS) clipboard CSV include a # Files field aligned with the table.
- Folder-crawl indexing: After a recursive folder crawl finishes, the index now runs a lightweight finalize step (
FinalizeFolderCrawlIndexing) that releases the temporary name cache instead of rebuilding all paths (RecomputeAllPaths) on macOS and Linux. Windows still performs OneDrive lazy-load sentinel updates in finalize; USN/MFT code paths are unchanged and continue to use full path recomputation where required.
- Indexing UI:
IsIndexBuilding()is sampled once per frame for index-build state;SearchControllerandGuiStatestay consistent withApplication’s notion of “index building.” - Windows status bar: Index elapsed time and final duration use the same
IsIndexBuilding()signal as the empty/indexing UI, so timing matches what the user sees during USN and monitor phases.
- Windows folder crawler: Enumeration no longer treats every reparse point as a symlink. OneDrive and other cloud placeholders use non-symlink reparse tags; only NTFS symlink reparse points (
IO_REPARSE_TAG_SYMLINK) are skipped, and junctions are followed again.
- Sonar:
FileIndex::RebuildPathToIdMapLockeduses a C++17 structured binding (cpp:S6005).
- Attribute loading: Replaced the two-task-per-file approach (separate size task + mtime task) with a single combined task that loads both in one
stat()syscall, eliminating the race where both tasks would callstat()on the same file before either wrote to the cache.FolderSizeAggregatornow reads already-cached file sizes fromFileEntryduring its index scan, skippingstat()for files pre-loaded by sort attribute tasks.
- Multi-file drag-and-drop: Drag selected rows from the results table to any shell target (Explorer, Desktop, Finder, etc.). Dragging from an unselected row snaps selection to that row and performs a single-file drag. Dragging from a selected row drags all eligible selected files at once. Directories and files pending deletion are excluded. Available on Windows and macOS.
- Results table: ImGui multi-select drives row selection and range extension (Shift+arrows, Shift+N/P, Ctrl+A, Ctrl+click), with table-aligned focus and clipper handling for range anchors.
- Benchmarks: macOS test script can run an optional std-linux filename hot-path search benchmark after the sample run.
- Indexing: Bump-pointer name arena replaces many small string allocations on large indexes; vestigial per-entry extension pooling removed from
FileEntry. - Parallel search: Filename filters use bounded
string_viewpath slices.
- Results table: Ctrl+click merges into the existing selection; N/P moves one row per keypress; Shift+arrow / Shift+N/P ranges work with the scrollable table’s focus scope.
- Status bar progress bar: When the app is busy (indexing, searching, loading attributes, or computing folder sizes), a themed indeterminate progress bar appears in the status bar. Track and fill use theme colors (Border, Accent). Footer layout reserves space so the status bar stays visible.
- Folder attributes: Folder rows in the results table now display last modified time and aggregate size instead of placeholder "Folder" values. NEEDS MORE TESTING
- Linux: Status bar now shows process memory (VmRSS from
/proc/self/status), matching Windows and macOS. Thread count uses a cgroup-aware fallback whenstd::thread::hardware_concurrency()returns 0 (e.g. in containers). - Documentation: Lock ordering and critical-sections design note (
docs/design/LOCK_ORDERING_AND_CRITICAL_SECTIONS.md) — rules for no I/O under locks and per-component mutex usage. - Results shortcuts: New Ctrl/Cmd+Shift+X shortcut copies selected or marked rows from the results table to the clipboard as CSV (header row plus one line per row, visible columns only).
- Thread pool sizing: Application, search engine, and folder crawler use
GetLogicalProcessorCount()(from ThreadUtils) instead ofstd::thread::hardware_concurrency()so Linux cgroup/container limits are respected when the runtime reports 0 cores. - About / Help: About section helpers and Help window refinements (see
AboutSectionHelpers.cpp/.h).
- Linux: Process memory in the status bar was not shown; it now displays "Memory: X MB" using
/proc/self/status(VmRSS).
- Fuzzy search: Use the
fz:prefix in the search box for fuzzy matching (e.g. typo-tolerant and abbreviation-friendly matches). Documented in the in-app Help window. - Indexing UI: Improved progress display and feedback while the initial index is being built.
- UI: Close, Cancel, and Delete buttons now use a consistent width across dialogs.
- Results panel: Shortcuts header text improved for better readability on smaller or resized windows.
- Dependencies: FreeType 2.14.2, nlohmann/json v3.12.0, ImGui docking branch.
- Windows indexing: When USN initial population failed, the UI could stay stuck on “Indexing” with no way to recover. The app now correctly leaves the indexing state and allows choosing another folder or retrying.
- Search: Background search worker now catches unhandled exceptions so a bad query or index state is less likely to crash the application.
- Windows / Gemini API: WinHttp handles are managed with RAII, avoiding handle leaks and improving reliability when using the Gemini integration.