Kerry is a KDE front-end for the Beagle search tool, which indexes your personal information space to help you find whatever you need. You can use Kerry to find documents, e-mails, Web history, IM/ITC conversations, source code, images, music files, applications, and much more.
Because Kerry is a front-end to Beagle, it needs the beagle daemon to be functional. Kerry and Beagle can now index many KDE-specific sources of information, such as Kopete conversations, Konqueror history, or KMail messages. The result is a smooth integration into the KDE environment through the Kerry interface. Find more about Beagle in Chapter Searching with Beagle (↑GNOME User Guide).
To find data using the Kerry tool, follow these steps:
Press Alt+F2 and enter kerry to start Kerry and to open the Kerry Beagle Search window. Alternatively, open the search window by left-clicking on the Kerry applet icon (a dog's head) in the system tray.
Enter the term to find in . To quickly clear the previously entered text, press the black arrow on the left.
The search is not case-sensitive. To search for optional terms, use the
OR keyword (in uppercase). For example,
Mars OR Venus finds all data containing any
occurrence of Mars, Venus, or both. To exclude search terms, use a
minus symbol (–) in front of them. For example, Mars
-Venus finds all data containing any occurrence of Mars
but without any occurrence of Venus. To search for an exact phrase,
enclose the phrase in quotes. If you want to include only certain file
type in results, specify the filename extension with
ext:. For example, Mars
ext:xml finds xml files containing Mars.
Select the scope of the search in the section of the right panel. To search all the indexed content, choose . However, you can limit the search only to indexed , , , instant messenger , , files, , or by clicking the appropriate item in the panel. You can change the scope before or after the search is performed.
Change the sort order of results in the section of the right panel. To sort results by type, click . Sorting by , , and is also possible. You can change the sort order before or after the search is completed.
You can limit the results by date of last modification. To show all results regardless of the date of the last modification, click in the right panel. You can show items modified today, since yesterday, this week, month, or year by clicking the appropriate item in the right panel. You can change this before or after the search is performed.
Press Enter or click the icon to the right of the search field to start the search. Results are displayed in the main area of the window.
Results are displayed in a window, sorted according to your settings. Click any item to activate it. To open a folder containing a found file instead of the file itself, click the name of the folder to the right of the filename. To display more information about an item, click the icon with the on the left.
You can change the scope of the search, sort order, or limitation by date at any time by clicking appropriate item in the panel on the right.
Use and to move between pages of the result list. The number of items found is shown in the bottom part of the window.
You can configure Kerry by right-clicking its icon in the tray and choosing or by clicking in Kerry's main window. The configuration dialog has four tabs.
On the tab, you can change the , on one page, or shortcuts for activating Kerry Beagle Search.
On the tab, set whether the Beagle indexing service should be started automatically and if data should be indexed while the computer is operating on battery power. You can also determine which folders should be indexed by Kerry Beagle Search and which folders should not be indexed at all. See Section 6.2.1, “Indexing More Directories” and Section 6.2.2, “Preventing Files and Directories from Being Indexed” for detailed instructions.
On the tab, choose which of the available Beagle back-ends should be enabled. To disable a back-end, uncheck it. For example, if you do not want your Kopete conversations be indexed by Kerry Beagle, uncheck the back-end.
On the tab, check the status of Beagle daemon. You can stop or start the daemon manually here. To use Kerry Beagle Search functionality, the daemon must be running.
By default, Kerry indexes your home folder only. If you do not want your home folder to be indexed, uncheck the option on the tab of the Kerry configuration. To index more folders, follow these steps:
Right-click the Kerry icon in the tray and choose .
Click the tab.
Click the button in the middle part () of the tab.
In the dialog that opens, choose the folder to index and click .
Press .
To exclude some folders or files from being indexed by Kerry, follow these steps:
Right-click the Kerry icon in the tray and choose .
Click the tab.
Click in the bottom part () of the tab.
In the dialog that opens, choose a folder not to index by selecting the option. Specify the path to the folder in the text field or press the folder button and choose the folder in a file dialog.
You can also specify files not to index by selecting and specifying the file pattern.
Press .