This document will use item as a general term referring to an AIM (AOL Instant Messenger) conversation, web page you visited, e-mail, or file.

Table of Contents

Basic Searches

Advanced Searches

The Results List

Options

The File Menu

Basic Searches

To search with gdSuite, use the bar on the left hand side. Enter terms to find in an item in the top text box and/or terms to find in the file name in the middle one. To limit your search to only a certain folder, enter it in the last drop down box or select browse from the drop down list to locate the folder manually. Remember, if you enter anything in the file name or folder boxes, you will limit your search only to files. Click Search to begin searching or read on for more advanced search options. Clicking Stop during a search will cancel the search.

Advanced Searches

One of the strengths of gdSuite is its advanced search options. In addition to the options from the first paragraph, above, there are two additional advanced search categories located below the Search button. To show or hide either of these category, click the arrow next to it.

When was it from?

The first category, "When was it from?", contains date options. Here, you can specify when the item you are looking for is from. You can select a preset time frame, or choose Specify Dates to manually enter a date in the To and From date selectors. You can either manually type a date, or click the drop down arrow to open a calendar. Specifying the same date in both boxes will limit your search to only that day.

What type of item is it?

The second category, "What type of item is it? ", contains specific options based on the type of item you are looking for. You can select an item type (E-Mail, Chat, Web Page, or File) to limit your search to only that type of item. In addition, each item has other advanced options. For every option except for file extension, you can enter either all or part of the information. For example, specifying the web page URL as airbear will match the page http://www.airbearsofware.com/gdSuite/.

E-mail:

• To/From - Who sent to email or who you sent the e-mail to
• Subject - The subject of the e-mail

Chats:

• IM Conversation With - Who you were talking using instant messaging

Web Page:

• Web Page Title - The title of the web page as it appeared at the top of your web browser.
• Web Page URL - the URL (Internet address) of the page you visited.

File:

• All - Matches all types of files
• Extension - Manually enter the file extension. A files extension is usually the part of a file name after the period. For example, the file licence.txt has the file extension txt. Do not enter the period in this text box.
• File Type - Select the type of file as according to Windows. Each file type is named by its description and, in parenthesis, its extension. For example, a type labeled Microsoft Word Document (.doc) will match the file help.doc and will have the same effect as entering doc in the extension box.

The Results List

The results list displays the search results gdSuite found. There are six columns of information:

• File Name/Title- File Name (Files), Web Page Title (Web Pages), Subject (E-Mails), or Conversation Snippet (AIM)
• Full Path/URL/From/Conversation With - File Path (Files), URL (Web Pages), From (E-Mails), or Conversation With (Who you talked to with) (Chat)
• Type - What type of item this result is: File, E-Mail, (Web Page, or AIM [Conversation]
• Date
• Snippet - A snippet from the item showing where the search terms were used

The list is originally sorted by date. However, clicking any of the column names sorts the list by that column. Note that colums can be sorted in ascending and descending order. Once a column is already sorted, click the column name again reverses the sort order.

Right click any item or click Selected Item from the menu bar at the top of the screen to show some options about the item. These options include the following(not all of these will be shown; they vary by the item type):

• View Cached ________ - Displays the saved version(s) of the item.
• Open __________ - Opens the item.
• Open Folder - Opens the folder containing the selected fuke.

When you double click any item in the list, the item will be opened.

Some of the above options (cached versions, e-mail threads, e-mails, IM conversations, and web sites) are viewed as web pages. They open using the gdSuite built-in browser. See the Use Built-In Browser option for more information.

Options

gdSuite has a number of options that can be turned on and off from the Options menu. The Options in bold are enable/selected by default.

Visual Settings

While there is no harm to changing this setting, it is reccomended to leave these settings to their defaults, in bold.

• Search Style/Normal Style - Toggles the look of the search bar on the left hand side of the screen between search style and normal style.
  
• Classic Style/Emulated Windows XP Style - Toggles the look of the search bar on the left hand side of the screen between Classic style and emulated Windows XP style. Classic style will make the bar look like an Explorer bar from your native operating system. Emulated Windows XP style makes the search bar look like an Explorer Bar from Windows XP. However, emulated bars have an awkarard look.

Other Settings

• Use Built-In Browser - Some features, such as viewing cached version of items and viewing all types of items except for files require the use of a web browser. gdSuite includes a built-in web browser, powered by Internet Explorer. If this option is check, gdSuite will use its built-in browser to open web pages. Otherwise, gdSuite will use the default browser for your computer.
  
• Check for Updates on Startup - This option determines whether or not gdSuite checks for updates every time it is started. If this option is selected, gdSuite will take about 1-2 seconds longer to load. To manually check for updates, select Check for Updates from the File menu at the top of the gdSuite window.
  
• Check Whether GDS is Running Before Searching- Normally, gdSuite checks whether Google Destkop Search is running before a search, and offers to start it if it is not started. Unchecking this option disables that features.
  
• Change Google Desktop URL - gdSuite usually automatically detects the Google Destkop Search location when it is running on the local computer. You can use this option to set the Google Destkop Search URL if you want to connect to a remote computer (instructions).
  
• Change Google Desktop URL - If you manually changed the Google Destkop Search URL, use this option to reset it and search the local computer

The File Menu

gdSuite has a number of commands that can be accessed from the File menu.

• New Search - Opens a new gdSuite search window. All gdSuite search windows that you open from anywhere are indepedant.
  
• Show Built-In Browser - Show the gdSuite built-in web browser, which is based on Internet Explorer. The Use Built-In Browser option does not affect this command.
  
• Check for Updates Now - Check for updates to gdSuite.
  
• Close Window - Closes the current gdSuite search results window and any browser windows it opened.