Better Find searches every database on the device in a single pass and takes you straight to the matching record.

Palm OS's built-in Find is a distributed protocol: the system asks each installed application, one after another, to search its own data and hand back a page of matches at a time. Better Find reads the databases directly instead, launching nothing, and updates results as you type.

What it does

• Searches Address, Date Book, Memo Pad, To Do and Mail, plus Note Pad titles
• Finds anything else too: it enumerates every data database on the device, so third-party applications are covered without needing to know about them
• Results are ranked rather than merely listed, using Okapi BM25, so the best match is at the top instead of whichever database happened to be read first
• Each result carries the icon of the application it came from, taken from that application itself
• Selecting a result opens that application on the exact record, using the same mechanism the system Find uses to jump to a hit
• Contact matches lead with the person's name, so several colleagues at one company stay distinguishable
• Coming back re-runs your last search and reselects the match you opened
• Optionally takes over the Find silkscreen button, from the Options menu. "Restore system Find" hands it straight back

Notes

• A standalone application. No hack manager required
• The Find button takeover works on Palm OS 3.5 and 4.x. It has no effect on Palm OS 5: the system there is native ARM code and reaches Find without going through the 68k trap table, so the patch is never consulted. Everything else works normally, and the Find button keeps opening the system Find
• The takeover is reapplied automatically after a reset
• Removing Better Find while it owns the Find button returns the button to the system Find rather than leaving it inert
• A search returns at most 48 matches, so a narrow term gives the better answer
• Configuration databases -- network, connection manager, preferences -- are skipped, since scanning them yields noise rather than results

Open source, MIT licensed.

Compatibility

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