August 8, 2009 - 1.0.1-B56 - Windows environment variable fix.

The use of the WILMADIR environment variable to instruct Wilma to use a non-standard location to store its indexes was broken on Windows.


July 12, 2009 - 1.0.1-B55 - Windows update fix, plus other minor issues

Many thanks to Peter from Sydney Australia (web site) for prodding me into revisiting poor neglected Wilma. He identified many small issues, particularly with the Windows version and one very big Windows problem with the update command. Hopefully Wilma will be more useful now, particularly for folks on Windows.

The long hiatus in Wilma development means this version was built with new versions of the compilers, which may introduce some minor cosmetic changes and some changes to the arrangement of the Wilma folder.

Please do not hesitate to contact me if you find Wilma misbehaving in any way.


January 7, 2008 - 1.0.1-B53 - indexer fixes and search history

  • Revisions to the way the desktop program connects to the indexer program to fix problems some Windows machines were having, including the indexer crashing.
  • The quick find field on the main window and the "Contains" field on the search dialog now let you scroll backwards and forwards through previous entries using the up and down arrow keys. The home and end keys can be used to jump to the first and last entries. The history is not preserved between runs.


September 21, 2007 - 1.0.1-B49 - mbox analyzer and misc fixes

  • The main addition to this version is a 'mbox' analyzer for a type of mail storage file common on Unix as well as used by Thunderbird and a number of other mail programs on all platforms. Unfortunately this does not include the files used by Microsoft's Outlook and Outlook Express programs. Note that I do not personally use these types of files, so the testing of this so far has been fairly limited.
  • When the zip analyzer encounters a bad zip file, it now just quietly skips it rather than raising an error.
  • Custom command file and external analyzer files are now stored with Unix newlines by the internal editor, but Wilma should be able to handle any of the three OS line ending modes on any platform when reading the file now.
  • Various modifications to increase the robustness of the communication between the desktop program and the indexer program.
  • Fixed problem where program would crash on a rare type of tar (sparse) file.
  • Fixed the file indexed counts so now the updating status is correct.


Aug 14, 2007 - 1.0.1-B45 - XML fixes

A user discovered that including a '<' character in the additional characters in the index options generated an error. Investigating this I also discovered an unrelated bug which was preventing the translation of html character expressions (things like < for the '<'). I have fixed both problems, but as the '<' character is a reserved character for near searches, some functionality is lost when it is used in this manner.


Aug 14, 2007 - 1.0.1-B44 - minor bug fixes

  • Fixed a problem on Windows where line endings were handled incorrectly in the new dialogs for custom commands and exteral analyzers.
  • Fixed another line ending problem with Windows and the display of the output from the system command.
  • Fixed a problem where only two commands could be separated by semicolons on a single line.
  • Now print a message when zero listresults are requested or no argument is given.
  • When running in WilmaDesktop, the root value __selectedcontents now holds the currently selected text from the contents pane.


Aug 9, 2007 - Warning about B43 and Windows

Windows users should avoid using the new editor for external analyzers as it could end up mashing everything on to one line. This has been fixed for the next version.


Aug 8, 2007 - 1.0.1-B43

  • Added a system command that can be entered from the console or scripts. This can run a program as if the command were entered on the operating system command line.
  • Added recordto and stoprecording commands to allow recording of commands to a file as actions are performed.
  • Added a "Custom" menu which allows users to add menu items which will run console commands.
  • Added a dialog for editing the external analyzers file.
  • Added a IP address selector to the server window for machines with multiple active network interfaces.
  • Made a fix to the auto discovery of Wilma servers, but I can still only see Windows ones. Transfers from a Linux server remain annoyingly slow.


Aug 3, 2007 - 1.0.1-B42 - minor changes irrelevant to most folks

  • Allow commands to be multiline as long as each line ends in an underscore. Two underscores at the end are escaped to one. This is unlikely to be relevant in Wilma, but is in common code that is used elsewhere.
  • Update window now doesn't appear until second run to avoid confusing number of Windows when Wilma is run for the very first time.
  • Changes to argument handling on wilmacmd so using -r does not leave you in interactive mode. Also better checks for blank arguments.
  • WilmaServer log now shows commands being executed.
  • Fixes to the contents display when using regular expressions.
  • The find dialog is reused if requested again so left over ones aren't left hidden behind other windows.
  • Added command history to WilmaDesktop console command field. Use the up and down arrows to browse through previous commands.


July 30, 2007 - 1.0.1-B41 - Why Wilma is still beta

  • Can now use # in first column for comments in scripts.
  • Fixed a problem with multiple root paths on Windows.
  • Fixed a problem with "save as" on all platforms.
  • Fixed a problem with ? in highlighting hits if words of only 1 character are indexed.
  • Reverted to not using soft wrap in contents pane. This seemed like a good idea, but created problems with outline mode and addressing those still left the outline and full modes a bit out of sync since the horizontal placement of the hits would not be the same. Finally it was not desirable when used with program code, which is particular use of mine.
  • Fixed script file opening which would not work on Windows.
  • Implemented the passing of criteria to referrals, which I am embarrassed to admit had simply been put aside and then forgotten.
  • Trying again to not have WilmaServer crash on unhandled error. This was supposedly fixed in previous release, but apparently disappeared into the ether or my delusions.
  • Also missing from the previous release was the dll/so/dylib (according to platform) file that had the word wrap fixes.
  • Improved thread handling to hopefully avoid errors when quickly scrolling through files, particularly with referrals.


July 25, 2007 - 1.0.1-B40

Nothing earth shattering, but just some maintenance items.

  • When double clicking a referral result, Wilma now tries to open the path on the local machine. This should allow both local referrals and net referrals where the server is local to work with double clicks.
  • Added an error trap to the net server, which was crashing if the contents of a file that no longer existed were requested.
  • Wilma now remembers previous sorted columns and uses them to break ties.
  • Fixes to get sub referrals (where the referred to index itself has referrals to other indexes) working on all platforms.
  • Fixed some more line wrap problems, but more significantly removed the horizontal scroll bar from the contents window and auto soft wrap lines to fit within the window. I also set the hard wrap default to 10000 so the soft wrap would be the default, but you can still have smaller values if you don't want the text to expand all the way across the window. Existing indexes will retain their word wrap values and so you might want to tune these as desired.
  • Changed the default analyzer for xml to generic as I believe folks will normally want to see the raw xml.
  • The html analyzer now adds newlines to the displayed contents when it encounters the "list item" tag.
  • Wilma was missing the maximize button, which has now been added.
  • Added a dialog for selecting the frequency of checks for updates and news. This dialog will automatically appear when you run the program for the first time (or when you run this version for the first time) and afterwards can be accessed by a new entry on the file menu.
  • Found a fix for a problem where the main window was hiding other windows opened at start up on Linux. This included the new index dialog when Wilma was first run as well as the check for update windows.


July 18, 2007 - 1.0.1-B39 - Propeller head special

There isn't much that most folks will notice in this update, although small performance improvements have occurred in some areas. The major additions are to console commands and the programability of Wilma.

  • Fixed a line wrap problem associated with tabs as well an issue with extra spaces in html content display.
  • Changed the previous match behaviour so that if the first file is already selected, it jumps to the last match. The next match already wrapped to the top. Added a beep for both to alert folks of the wrapping.
  • The open index dialog and popup were not being sorted on Linux.
  • Added a tee command to the console to allow output to be routed into a file as well as the console window.
  • Limited the console window in WilmaDesktop to just displaying the last 1000 lines of output.
  • Can now create values by using setvalue with a property name beginning with an underscore. The getvalue command will return an empty string if a non existant property name beginning with an underscore is requested. The values are saved when the index is saved.
  • The currently selected file ids are now available as a tab delimited list from the __select value of the index.
  • Added an rbscript command which accepts the path of a file of RealBasic code that will be compiled and run within Wilma. In addition to the generic RealBasic functions, this script has access to functions to call the Wilma command processor. The text that results from commands is passed back in an array of strings that can be processed using the RealBasic tools.
  • A wordcount command was added as a console command. This returns a list of the words in the index along with the number of files each word occurs in and the total number of occurences of the word. Optional parameters allow the list to be restricted to the selected files and determine the sort column of the list.


July 13, 2007 - 1.0.1-B38

Added caching of the text files produced by external analyzers such as pdftotext. This significantly improves speed when browsing large files analyzed by slow external processes. Doesn't affect indexing speed though.


July 11, 2007 - 1.0.1-B37

  • With the arrival of a new Intel Mac, I discovered that there was a problem in the universal build which would cause problems on Intel Macs. This has now been fixed.
  • The frequent checking of the floppy drive, which was an issue on some Windows systems, has been fixed.
  • Limited length of stack trace back in error boxes.
  • Fixed the performance issue with Linux referrals.
  • Added occurrences to the number of files found status line.
  • Grave accent was not included as a viewable character.
  • On start up the remembered sort column is now highlighted.
  • Renamed the number handling selections to try and make them clearer.
  • The numbers anywhere option was not working correctly and highlighting was not working properly when extra characters were used and the search phrase started with a wild card.
  • The "Search This File" option was not working correctly on files containing UTF-8 characters.
  • Attempted to improve the interrupting of content load threads when rapidly switching results in result list. Some analyzers only check every second though, so some delay will still remain.
  • Fixed problem with wrapping on last line of contents display.
  • Fixed problem that occurred if skipped word was searched for and wasn't first word in search phrase. Also added status text showing when word in search phrase was skipped.
  • Removed the underscore character from the list of alphabetic characters. It can still be added as one of the additional characters if desired.
  • External analyzers on Windows had a number of problems, including being unable to handle spaces in commands paths, flashing a command window whenever the analyzer was invoked and failing when the externanalyzers.txt file had Windows line endings rather than Unix ones.


June 30, 2007 - 1.0.1-B35

Just a couple of small fixes:

  • A change made in B33 to try and help performance on Linux referrals, broke local referrals on Windows if there was a significant number of results. This has been fixed, but the Linux performance issue remains. I am able to reproduce it and will be addressing it, but may not have time for Wilma for a few days.
  • The selection of multiple results for copying and pasting that was supposed to be in B34, missed getting in the final build and has been included here.


June 26, 2007 - 1.0.1-B34

  • Added delete to the file menu, so you don't have to use the open dialog to delete indexes.
  • Now save the column and direction the results list is sorted by for the next time the program is run.
  • Automatically fill in include file list when a new index is created with WilmaDesktop.
  • Some changes to path calculations to address problems with UNC paths on Windows.
  • Added the ability to do a regular expression search within the contents pane of the currently selected file. Invoked from the Index menu.
  • Now when a file is selected in the result list, the status line reports "File n of m".
  • Fixed so page up and down, home and end work in the results list.
  • if a custom skipfile.txt is placed in the index directory, it will be used instead of the normal one
  • fixed so the not operator could be used without spaces.
  • Now allows multiple result selection for copying and pasting results.
  • Some documentation changes.


June 24, 2007 - 1.0.1-B33 - Numerous fixes

  • Fixes to filling index popup behavior and in particular when a new index is created, but not built.
  • UNC rootpaths on Windows would only work with Unix style forward slashes. Now will work with backslashes as well.
  • Numerous fixes to added and trailing characters.
  • Fixes for non alpha latin1 characters - in particular switched to WindowsLatin1 and Particularly interested in getting Euro symbol to work. It still won't in files that represent it in unicode.
  • Now shows contents of first entry in results list following a search. Can also start typing while the focus is on the results list and be automatically directed to the quick find field.
  • Wildcard searches were not honouring the min and max word lengths when it came to highlighting matches in contents or showing outlined content.
  • Change that might improve performance of local referrals.
  • Minor cosmetic changes (button sizes)


June 20, 2007 - 1.0.1-B32 - the fixes continue

This update addresses the following problems:

  • Pfd files inside archives were not being indexed correctly. This could have affected files inside archives that should have been indexed with an external analyzer as well.
  • There were a number of problems with word wrapping in the contents pane.
  • Problems on Linux with local references and other problems related to determining the folder that Wilma was launched from.
  • In some circumstances the program could crash following a save without a build.
  • Doing searches on indexes with referrals was broken in the command line program.
  • Buttons were made larger to accommodate Ubuntu Linux.
  • The documentation on external analyzers incorrectly named the file required as externalanalyzers.txt rather than externanalyzers.txt.


June 14, 2007 - 1.0.1-B29 - More minor fixes

This update addresses the following problems:

  • Increased all button heights to try an accommodate Linux systems where font didn't fit
  • Occurrance count column was sorting lexically, rather than numerically.
  • The maximim number of characters displayed in contents pane increased from 150,000 to 5,000,000.


June 5, 2007 - 1.0.1-B28 - Some minor fixes

This update addresses the following problems:

  • The keyboard short cut key for Save As was incorrectly assigned to Shift-S rather than Control-Shift-S for Windows/Linux and Apple-Shift-S for Mac.
  • While an underscore character is considered a normal alphabetic, a bug prevented its use in search tokens.
  • The automatic check for updates was causing a significant delay in the start up of the program when the program was unable to access the Internet. The check is still done, but invisibly in the background and produces no notice if it cannot contact the server.


May 3, 2007 - 1.0.1-B27 - PDF memory fix

This update fixes a problem where the internal PDF analyzer leaked virtual memory and thus prevented the indexing of a significant number of those files. This did not affect indexing if the external pdftotext analyzer was used instead.


April 26, 2007 - 1.0.1-B26 - The first round of fixes are available

Not surprisingly it didn't take long for problems to arise once Wilma left the cozy confines of our local lan. The key fixes here involve path names on non English systems, but there are some fixes to the documentation as well.

Look for more soon! :-)


April 27, 2007 - 1.0.1-B25 Available

The first public beta test version.


April 23, 2007 - 1.0.1-B24 Available

This is hopefully the last internal beta version.


March 24, 2007 - 1.0.1-B18 Available

First version to test update and news notices.


March 24, 2007 - Introduction

This page will contain news and announcements about Wilma