Indexing files feature

[Nexonic]

@schumaku: I'm not sure people are as confused as you think. Certainly indexing can be done by third party apps like google desktop search but I think we would all appreciate having the proprietary MS indexing working so that the index can be used by all programs. The solution is either having samba support this indexing (in the works and hopefully soon) or the client create a local index from a samba share (currently limited to 3rd party applications). My comments about Media Player/Media Center are specific to the limitations of these programs when using un-indexed (MS indexed) libraries and were added as an aside/workaround for people looking for fast searching of music/videos/photos.

[schumaku]

...I think we would all appreciate having the proprietary MS indexing working so that the index can be used by all programs. ...

A complete transparent indexing inlcuding media data MP3, ID3, EXIF, IPTC, ICC, resolution, density, quality, encoding, bitdepth, whatever, ... that can be used seamplessly by whatever M$, Apple, Adobe, ... applications of course? I must have lost you.

[Nexonic]

Yes you lost me. I have no idea what you are trying to say.

[schumaku]

Simple: There is no universal indexing...

[Nexonic]

I never meant to imply that there is. But wouldnt MS indexing help with say google desktop search? Would the time it takes google desktop search to query the file system and create its own index be the same on two drives - one indexed by windows and one not?

[schumaku]

Common search indexes are basd on text content, while the media player neds media information stored in different tags. It's by far not as easy as it looks. You don't need a full-text index for media for example. Then the formats of the indices are very different...

[Nexonic]

Agreed! Maybe I'm wrong but I assume any windows-based program reading from the file system is going to receive file and directory lists faster when the file system is indexed by windows. Please correct me on this if I'm wrong about this.

[AssetBurned]

hmm wondering if microsoft wouldn't be a better place to complain about this missing feature.

I mean I use a Mac with Lion and Spotlight is working fine on my shares.

CU Assetburned

[schumaku]

hmm wondering if microsoft wouldn't be a better place to complain about this missing feature.

Yes and no...

I mean I use a Mac with Lion and Spotlight is working fine on my shares.

It's mot likely the price of a far more sophisticated (disributed, application-oriented, server-, media- and client-centric) indexing technology

Just worth mentioning. Never mind, no need to open an OS war here.

Viewing on the NAS - for example Twonky is also building and maintaining an index on the media files (artist, album, titles, ....) - but except of the normal Media Player, the Windows Media Center can't make use of it. That's why I mentioned the non-existance of a "universal", platform ** search index.

[fantomas]

My issue with the lack of indexing if for my music which I play with Windows Media Center. Adding a share is easy enough through Windows Media Player which will cache the libraries in "%USERPROFILE%\AppData\Local\Microsoft\Media Player". The problem is when you add files to the share directory it doesn't get updated within Media Players database - this is where indexing is required. I have setup a daily bat file that rebuilds the local database and this works for the time being but isn't good when you want your new music available immediately.

Isn't this just what TwonkyMedia is for? Note that it also doesn't index that fast, but you can tune rescan time a bit

[schumaku]

My issue with the lack of indexing if for my music which I play with Windows Media Center.

Isn't this just what TwonkyMedia is for?

Two worlds ... unless things have changed massively, Microsoft WMC is one, DLNA/UPnP AV another...

[isaac.hu]

Can QNAP offer indexing feature? I have 1.5TB files, wanna find something quickly! plz be quick!

[markd]

I have to agree indexing is a must on this, for me all i want is to be able to add it to my libraries in windows 7.

p.s. setting it up as an offline folder as i think someone mentioned is just crazy, i don't have 6 TB of free space on everyone in the offices computers to play with.

[SuperSalad]

The pieces already seem to be there, Lucene for full-text indexing, OpenSearch for the query format, and Windows Federated Search, which is the backchannel that Windows Search on a client uses to search Windows shares on Windows servers that are also locally running Windows Search.

Some useful background info:
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windows/desktop/dd940456(v=vs.85).aspx
http://coolthingoftheday.blogspot.ca/2010/10/new-federated-search-connectors-are-not.html

The permissions thing could be difficult (don't let unauthorized users search for files in shares they don't have access to).

[equilter]

It would be really handy to have an indexed search function on the QNAP. Windows Search and Windows Desktop Search have problems interacting with the QNAP for MS Office files (not reliable results), so how about a search index function directly on the QNAP ?