FileSpector is a GUI tool for quickly finding all text occurrences in multiple files in a directory, matching a specific file extension pattern. It is developed for GNU/Linux systems. Its focus is on simplicity and ease-of-use, as opposed to feature-rich.
Double-clicking a line in the search results, opens the file in the text editor at the line containing the search term. FileSpector automatically detects the text editor installed on your GNU/Linux system.
A wide range of command-line options are supported, making it possible to integrate FileSpector with existing tools. You could for example add a "Find in Files" option to your file manager's pop-up menu, after right-clicking a directory.
The easiest way to install FileSpector is to head over to the Releases page. From there you can download DEB and RPM packages for most popular GNU/Linux distributions, such as Debian, Ubuntu, Fedora and openSUSE. If no package is available for your distribution, you can build and install FileSpector directly from source code. This procedure is described further down on this page.
The packages find, grep and which are needed to run FileSpector. These are installed by default on most GNU/Linux distributions.
Through the command line options, you have full control over how FileSpector starts. This makes it possible to integrate FileSpector in other applications, such as the Nautilus, Dolphin, Thunar, Nemo, Caja and Double Commander file managers.
For example, you could add an option Find in Files to the context menu, when right-clicking on a directory in a file manager. With the help of the --directory command line option, FileSpector can launch and automatically initialize the search directory to the one you selected in your file manager.
Usage: filespector [OPTIONS]
Options:
-? --help Show help options
-a --autostart Start search after opening
-d [dir] --directory[=dir] Directory to search in
-i [off|on] --ignore-case[=off|on] Ignore case during search
-l [code] --lang [code] Set user interface language
-p [pattern] --pattern[=pattern] File pattern to match
-r [off|on] --recursive[=off|on] Recurse into directories
-s [text] --searchterm[=text] Text to find in files
Examples:
filespector -i on -r off -d /home/user -p "*.txt|*.log" -s "text to find"
filespector --lang de --directory="/home/user/my files" --searchterm=findme
The Lazarus IDE was used to develop FileSpector. To install Lazarus, you can download DEB and RPM packages from SourceForge. However, it is recommended to install the version of Lazarus that is present in the package repositories of your GNU/Linux distribution. Here are the Lazarus installation instructions for most popular GNU/Linux distributions:
Debian: sudo apt install make gdb fpc fpc-source lazarus pandoc
Ubuntu: sudo apt install make gdb fpc fpc-source lazarus lcl pandoc
Fedora: sudo dnf install make gdb fpc fpc-src lazarus pandoc
openSUSE: sudo zypper install make gdb fpc fpc-src lazarus pandoc
Once Lazarus is installed, you can build FileSpector from the terminal using:
make clean all
After successfully building FileSpector, you can install it from the terminal using:
sudo make install
To remove FileSpector, you can run:
sudo make uninstall
For development work on FileSpector, it is recommended to work in the Lazarus IDE directly. Start Lazarus by selecting it from the application menu of your desktop environment. Next, select Project → Open Project from the program menu. Browse to the ./sources directory and select the filespector.lpi file. Build, run and debug FileSpector by simply clicking the green play-button in the toolbar or by selecting Run → Run from the program menu.