Show HN: I am making an app to rival "Everything"

Can't comment on the tool itself, but the website does not render correctly on a Macbook with the 1512x982 resolution ("Default" scaling on a 14" M3 MBPro). The left side is cut off unless I zoom out to 80% and I have to scroll right to see the content on the other side.

Same on Win10, latest Firefox, when I snap-left and make my FF take only half-screen 1920:2 = 962x1080, 'stuff' are off-screen in both left and right. I have to zoom out to 50% to see the full content.

Same on anything resembling a mobile device

Quick heads up. Your website doesn't display well on mobile, cutting off the text on either side of the main page without scaling appropriately on Firefox Mobile

It's also not working well on Firefox desktop (MacOS), same issue.

Not relevant but I really dislike the name, "Da Deep Search".

If it were the only app that did what it does, then I could get over it, but since it's being purpose built to "Rival Everything", then it would need to have dramatic improvements over everything for me to consider ever using it.

One thing I can think of that Everything does not do but would be nice:

If you could have a central server that each instance on the domain would report its file data to, and then people with permission to access the server could then quickly search every file on every computer in the entire domain that is running a copy of "Da Deep Search" (Seriously, give it a better name. How about DDSearch?) and also be able to click the results to access the files they find in an explorer tab, that would be fantastic and potentially helpful.

You could sell such a product. Law firms, small and medium businesses, homelabs and home computing enthusiasts alike would like them, although I would recommend that you offer it for free for non-commercial use.

It would be nice to be able to make programic access to integrate other tools for search. For instance, I use a lot of accessibility tools.

Most people use a CLI. However, that can cause latency for execution, so a service or a REST interface would be interesting.

> The app fails when I want to locate a file from another drive that I share between PCs and doesn't use the NTFS file format. Another thing it could do better is to feel a bit more system intergraded. Windows treat it like a separate window, like all the others, and Alt + Tabbing through multiple windows, or giving it administrator privileges every time you open it can cause a small chaos and frustration. It also looks kind of outdated. Doesn't have an easy and quick way to list the most frequently or recently used files. Doesn't provide security for sensitive files by locking them behind a password.

Just my 2 cents: I am not sharing drive, so this doesn't apply to me. "Better system integration" - I have the shortcut set to activate opened and open new only when none exists, so Alt+TAB isn't problem, I never have to give it admin privileges (I assume it has them). "Looks kinda outdated" - you mean "not bloated"? Simplicity, readability, uniformity with the rest of the system and information density are key pluses for me. "Doesn't list most frequent files" - for that windows already has "recents" it shows as first thing when opening new file explorer window. "doesn't provide security" - "Do one thing and do it well". I don't want my search bar to assume a role of access arbiter.

> If these issues bother you as well, keep reading.

Not a single issue you listed bothers me, many I actually prefer the state they are in to your point of view, so I didn't bother to continue reading.

Hello everyone,

I have made a new post answering your questions and also talking about the new update here: https://news.ycombinator.com/edit?id=44310807

Tip: briefly summarise what it actually is in your intros, don't just compare to 'Everything'. I have no idea what that is; took the headline to mean conceptually everything before clicking in.

> No administrator privileges

Then it won't use the same trick Everything uses, so can't rival it?

Everything may also be installed as a service, so then the application doesn’t need administrator privileges itself on every startup.

No, it still needs admin for installation of that service.

This is portable, so no install and no service.

I presume you don't install that service on every startup?

Why is it showing installation process if this a 'portable software'?

Hi. It requires an installation process in order to not get flagged as malware, since I can't pay for a code signing certificate. But there is also a .zip version

I think your project is at far too early a state to share. You are currently literally using 'fs::recursive_directory_iterator()' to search one file at a time on the selected drives. You aren't even using multi-threading for solid state volumes or caching the file system details during iteration, meaning every search is going to take several seconds on even modestly-sized SSDs. I can't believe this is faster than a comparable Windows 11 search, as you claim on your GitHub - I suspect the Windows search was for a non-indexed location and/or from a cold start, meaning the file system entries weren't cached already by the OS. (By the way, if you're going to make claims like this, you should publish reproducible benchmarks, so people can test your methodology.)

You also say that you want a solution more integrated with Windows, yet your UI is in SFML and your screenshots look nothing like a native Windows application.

Your project website doesn't render correctly on non-wide screens.

You are using a font which won't render many Unicode filenames correctly, e.g. Japanese or Chinese characters.

You have given no thought to accessibility or localisation.

You argue that Everything doesn't work with non-NTFS drives. That's incorrect - you can add them manually. See https://www.voidtools.com/faq/#how_do_i_index_a_fat_volume . You can also add Network Drives, NAS volumes etc.

Everything will run as non-administrator, but it will be unable to index NTFS properties. This is an OS-level restriction. You will face the same when you attempt to read these properties. The same goes for accessing protected folders - you just skip them.

You mention that you also want to feature file encryption and file transfer features in the same application. You are taking on too much here; each of the three features (file search, file transfer and file/folder encryption) is challenging and could take months to years to develop on its own. There are already accomplished apps satisfying these needs. Why would anyone use your solution over 7-zip?

You have no tests. If you want to feature encryption or file transfer, you will need an extensive test suite. Users will not be happy if your tool deletes or mangles their files.

Looking at your "Da-file-encrypter" repo, you don't seem to have any knowledge about how to actually encrypt files - you are doing an XOR against the bytes of the key, which is derived from the same bytes each time. Please NEVER ROLL YOUR OWN encryption strategy. Even the experts get it wrong. Instead, use a proper cryptography library. If you take anything away from this, please let it be that - never implement your own encryption.

Voidtools' Everything has an API and people have used that to integrate with launchers like PowerToys Run. It may be better to use the API and to add the features you think it is missing. It is very unlikely you will be able to beat its performance.

Judging by your licence and the Donate button on your website, you seem to have recently switched licences and want to make money out of this. In my personal opinion, that's not a good look for a project in this state.

Why?