BMS Manual Search
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@Falcon316 hm, in the cfg folder there’s a file manuals.cfg which lists the manuals that should be indexed. What does it contain?
Also for the basics, could you verify that the training manual is present under its original name
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@jayb Dear Jay, the problem is solved.
In my FalconBMS 4.37/Docs folder there was a file named “bms-training.pdf”; and after renaming it to “bms-training-manual.pdf”, the problem is solved.Strange because I am quite sure that “bms-training.pdf” was the original name…
Anywhay many tnks for your help! -
@Falcon316 Great to hear! Yeah I think the name you renamed to is the original one since some versions ago
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A new version is out with a minor improvement to support manuals with different filenames.
It turns out that some manuals can be distributed under different filenames. At first I thought that had to be wrong, but on the BMS Wiki page for manuals (https://wiki.falcon-bms.com/en/manuals) a few of the manuals available for download have slightly different filenames to those that ship as part of a BMS install.
Generally, this app ships with a list of filenames of manuals that will be indexed and subsequently can be searched. Up till now they were the filenames from a BMS install.
In the new release the alternative names for the training manual, the -1 and -34 are added to that list, ensuring that the indexing will pick up whichever filename is present.
I have also added the brevity guide from the “Real Manuals” group of docs since that is packed with useful keywords that one might want to look up:
So @Falcon316, with the new version you can rename the training manual back to the name you had if you like.
You may find the new version here: https://github.com/JBoysen1/BMSManualFinder/releases/tag/v1.0-beta.7
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The Manual Search app uses browsers (like Chrome or Edge) to open search results.
Would people be interested in having the option to open results in a “proper” reader like Acrobat, Foxit or SumatraPDF ?
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@jayb
Yes, please!
I’m a Foxit guy! -
@jayb Yes, Acrobat.
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Salut
Excellent job.
Thank -
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Very slick application. 100% self explanatory and it does indeed speed up browsing in the manuals! A+
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Hey @jayb, did you happen to include a ‘custom’ icon in the installation folder? The generic windows icon is somewhat nostalgic!
I most certainly enjoy using the app for searches as I’m quite at odds in finding something I know exists in some .pdf and don’t really enjoy ‘thumbing’ through the 11 manuals in an attempt to find the particular search.
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Now that the app is mostly done things like the icon should also be fixed. Thanks for the reminder!
A few things still outstanding:
- Proper pdf reader inclusion - will be ready very soon, some time next week
- Some speed optimization in search when using Proximity and Flex
- An option to allow full substring search
-JayB
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Excellent work on doing that tool. It is really useful and helpful to search the manuals. Well done and thank you.
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A new version is out with support for dedicated pdf readers such as Acrobat, Foxit and Sumatra:
The app will detect the default pdf reader from the computer registry. If you always just use one and the same reader there should be no issues*.
But just in case the default reader is not showing up in the top right corner, a fallback method is to add a line in the “Config\Reader.cfg” file, specifying which reader should be used. Check out examples shown in the file to set that up.
The new version can be found here:
https://github.com/JBoysen1/BMSManualFinder/releases/tag/v1.0-beta.8*) During testing it turned out that the registry may become corrupted/confused if uninstalls happen or the system is switched between which reader out of several possible should be default choice.
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@jayb Thanks
I noticed that Acrobat only allows one tab per document (understandable), but when clicking a link in BMS-MS for another page in the same document, the tab is not updated.
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@CriticalMass Yeah I noticed that too. I could open an entire new Acrobat window but found that a little intrusive. But let me know. Otherwise a habit that might work is to use Ctrl+W to close current tab in Acrobat before perusing more results.
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One question. Should I uninstall the first version before I install this one? Or will this install over the first one.
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@mj3437 The app does not install, you just place it wherever you like. So no need to uninstall. But you will have to build index again first time you open the new version
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About the multiple hits for pages in the same manual with dedicated pdf readers, I have now tested both Foxit Reader and Acrobat Reader.
Foxit reader behavior
If we Open a link for a manual page with Foxit and then subsequently use another link with Foxit into the same manual but on another page, the page shifts in Foxit within the same tab. So that is nice behavior I would say.
Acrobat behavior
If you open a link into Acrobat, you cannot open another link in the same manual on another page. Nothing happens in Acrobat, it stays on the page of the first link. You need to close the tab first in Acrobat, then new links will work.
There are some Settings in Acrobat that I have tried, but none of them seemed to make a difference.
I will test out Sumatra later on
-JayB
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I have now tested SumatraPDF as well.
If a link is opened from the app search results, the manual will open in a tab on the page of interest. If the document bookmarks are visible, SumatraPDF will show where in the bookmark tree the result is.
If another link for another page in the same manual is clicked in the Search app, in Sumatra the page shifts within the same Tab. Furthermore, the bookmark tree on the left will change as well to reflect where the new page is inside the tree.
In my opinion that is pretty nice behavior. Purely in terms of presenting search results from this app, SumatraPDF does very well among the dedicated pdf readers.