Haiku News ~ Print: #00624 Review: QueryWatcher.

Review: QueryWatcher.

Nov 16, 2003 07:46 UTC, by Chris Simmons, Senior Journalist.
From the found-it department...

Koki from the Japan BeOS Network (http://www.jpbe.net) sent me an english translation of his review of QueryWatcher. QueryWatcher's main job is to indicate to the user the presence of results from various queries. What follows is Koki's review, with slight corrections by me.

Review of QueryWatcher, by Koki.

The BeOS file system (BFS) sets itself apart by offering super fast queries that can use pretty much any file attribute as search criteria. QueryWatcher (QW) is a very simple utility that monitors any given BFS query and displays its status on the desktop. QW's simplicity is very deceiving though: depending on the user's imagination, QW can be extremely useful.

Let's start by taking a look at a typical QW screenshot.

koki_20031107_qw-ondesktop

QueryWatcher uses different colors to display the status of queries.

As can be seen from the above screenshot, QW sits on the desktop and displays the status of queries using different colors. In this example, QW is monitoring queries named BBS, Comment, Email and Reply Now!; red indicates that there are no matches, and green is displayed where there is a match to a query.

Installing QueryWatcher
First, download QueryWatcher from Bebits.com. The package does not include any installer program or script, so there is some manual work to do here, but this is pretty simple. Follow the steps below.

Expand the ZIP file downloaded from Bebits.com anywhere on your HDD (QueryWatcher can be run from anywhere on your system). This will create a folder with all the QW files in it.
Create a /boot/home/config/settings/Nerd Herd Software/QueryWatcher folder.
Place the queries you want QW to monitor in this folder. You can also use links that point to queries located in other folders.

Queries monitored by QW are placed in the /boot/home/config/settings/Nerd Herd Software/QueryWatcher/ folder.

QW is now installed.

Running QueryWatcher
Double-clicking the QueryWatcher icon will start the program in a window as shown below.

koki_20031107_qw-window

QueryWatcher displayed in a window. The little hand-shaped icon is called ""replicant handler".

Of course QW can be run in a window as shown here, but it would certainly be better if it were embedded into desktop as shown on the first screenshot of this article. That would be much more elegant, and it would also save some screen space.

To "embed" QW into the desktop, a BeOS feature called "replicants" is used. What the replicant feature allows you to do is embed a replica of a certain program into another (for example, QW into the desktop in this case). To place a QW replicant on the desktop, proceed as follows.

From the Deskbar BeOS/Zeta menu, select .

Double-click on the QueryWatcher icon to start the program.
Right-click the little hand-shaped icon located on the lower right corner of the QW windows (it's called the "replicant handle"), and drag it to the desired position on the desktop.
Release the mouse button and the QW replicant will be then displayed on the desktop.
Close the original QW window. As you can see, the QW replicant lives on even after the QW is closed. In fact, the replicant will remain there even after reboot. This "presistance" is a feature of BeOS replicants.

If you want to move the QW replicant to another position on your desktop, just click on the replicant handle and drag it to the desired position. Deleting the replicant is also easy: right-click on the replicant handle and select .

Using QW to display query results
It is possible to use QW to display the results of the queries that the program monitors. You can either left-click on the query name displayed by QW, or you can alternatively right-click on the query name and select "Open query results" from the popup menu. Either way will open a Tracker window with the results of the query.

koki_20031107_rightclick-qw

Query results are displayed in a Tracker window by clicking "Open query results".

Some queries ideas
BeOS queries can be used in many different ways. For the purpose of sparking some ideas, here are brief details of the queries that I use with QW on my system.

BBS = Looks for new messages from the JPBE.net message board (uses the E-mail attributes From, Subject, and Status).
Comment = Watches for emails containing new comments to articles on JPBE.net (uses the E-mail attributes Subject and Status)
Email = Watches for all new mail other than the above (uses a combination of E-mail attributes Status, From and Subject)
Open Now! = Watches for new email that has not been opened for at least 2 days (uses E-mail attributes Status and When)

QueryWatcher follows a very simple concept, but thanks to the power of the Be file system, it can be an extremely useful tool. Simple but powerful, exactly the way BeOS is supposed to be.

Review summary
Application name: QueryWatcher
Version: 1.0
Author: Michael Armida (info@nerdherdsoftware.com)
Download URL: http://www.bebits.com/app/3420