FoxTrot hidden preferences

Here are some commands you can type in Terminal.app. It is suggested to quit FoxTrot before typing them.
Note: for FoxTrot Personal, type com.ctmdev.FoxTrot instead of com.ctmdev.FoxTrotPro; for FoxTrot Search Admin, type com.ctmdev.FoxTrotAdmin

Search string autocompletion:

to disable autocomplete suggestions of words starting with:
- defaults write com.ctmdev.FoxTrotPro AutocompleteSuggestStartingWith -bool NO
- to reset: defaults delete com.ctmdev.FoxTrotPro AutocompleteSuggestStartingWith
to disable autocomplete suggestions of mistyped words:
- defaults write com.ctmdev.FoxTrotPro AutocompleteSuggestMaxEditDistance -int 0
- to reset: defaults delete com.ctmdev.FoxTrotPro AutocompleteSuggestMaxEditDistance
- Default value is 2. You can set it to 1 to suggest words with a single typo.
to change the precedence order for suggestions depending on the number of typos:
- defaults write com.ctmdev.FoxTrotPro AutocompleteDistanceRankFactor -float value
- to reset: defaults delete com.ctmdev.FoxTrotPro AutocompleteDistanceRankFactor
- with value being a floating point value. The default value is 100. Lower values will increase precedence for words with typos, and higher values will decrease it.

Indexing specific filetypes:

to disable indexing the contents of a specific file type (replace extension by the actual filename extension); you will then need to rebuild your index:
- defaults write com.ctmdev.foxtrot Aliases -array-add "{type='extension'; as='';}"
to index the contents of a specific file type as if it was another file type (replace overriddenExtension and overridingExtension by the actual filename extensions):
- defaults write com.ctmdev.foxtrot Aliases -array-add "{type='overriddenExtension'; as='overridingExtension';}"
to disable indexing, or override the filename extension, for files with given extension only when their contents starts with a specific hexadecimal header:
- defaults write com.ctmdev.foxtrot Aliases -array-add "{type='extension'; headers=(<hexadecimal header>); as='';}"
you may also specify multiple possible headers:
- defaults write com.ctmdev.foxtrot Aliases -array-add "{type='extension'; headers=(<header 1>, <header 2>, <header 3>); as='';}"
to reset (you should then launch FoxTrot and quit it again, before altering this setting again, with defaults write …)
- defaults delete com.ctmdev.FoxTrot Aliases
Note that you can specify Uniform Type Identifiers (UTI), or HFS file types, instead of extensions. For exemple, for plain text files, you can use either txt, .txt, public.plain-text, or <TEXT>.

Other indexing options:

to enable compressing PDF files, when storing a copy of the files in the index (note that many PDF files are already compressed, so re-compressing them in FoxTrot will use more CPU, without reducing the index size significantly):
- defaults write com.ctmdev.FoxTrot CompressPDF -bool YES
- to reset: defaults delete com.ctmdev.FoxTrot CompressPDF
to change the compression level of stored textual contents:
- defaults write com.ctmdev.FoxTrot ContentZstdLevel -int level
- to reset: defaults delete com.ctmdev.FoxTrot ContentZstdLevel
- with level being an integer between 1 (fastest) and 22 (most compressed). Default level is 5.
to change the compression level of stored documents:
- defaults write com.ctmdev.FoxTrot DocumentZstdLevel -int level
- to reset: defaults delete com.ctmdev.FoxTrot DocumentZstdLevel
- with level being an integer between 1 (fastest) and 22 (most compressed). Default level is 5.
to change the compression dictionary used to compress stored textual contents, run the shell script Set FoxTrot Content Compression Dictionary.command in Terminal.app
to disable indexing of the Finder comments (aka Spotlight comments) and OpenMeta tags:
- defaults write com.ctmdev.FoxTrot SkipFinderComments -bool YES
- to reset: defaults delete com.ctmdev.FoxTrot SkipFinderComments
to disable language identification:
- defaults write com.ctmdev.FoxTrot RestrictLanguageIdentification ""
- to restrict language identification to some languages: defaults write com.ctmdev.FoxTrot RestrictLanguageIdentification "fr en"
- to reset: defaults delete com.ctmdev.FoxTrot RestrictLanguageIdentification
to set the maximum number of concurrent index updates (the default is one by CPU core):
- defaults write com.ctmdev.FoxTrot MaxConcurrentIndexUpdates -int n
- to reset: defaults delete com.ctmdev.FoxTrot MaxConcurrentIndexUpdates
to ignore the attributes modification date when determining if a files has changed and needs to be updated (so changing the Spotlight comments or Finder label won’t mark the file for update), set IgnoreAttributesModificationDate to true in the Config file (in the Finder, use the “Show package content” contextual menu on the index file, located in {home}/Library/FoxTrot):
- <IgnoreAttributesModificationDate>true</IgnoreAttributesModificationDate>
to disable automatic-compaction of the indices:
- defaults write com.ctmdev.FoxTrot DisableAutoCompact -bool YES
- to reset: defaults delete com.ctmdev.FoxTrot DisableAutoCompact

Searching:

to enable ignoring “other metadata” when searching “any metadata or filename” (for FoxTrot Personal, type com.ctmdev.FoxTrot instead of com.ctmdev.FoxTrotPro):
- defaults write com.ctmdev.FoxTrotPro IgnoreOtherMetadata -bool YES
- to reset: defaults delete com.ctmdev.FoxTrotPro IgnoreOtherMetadata
to change the multiple strings separator, used in search filters:
- defaults write com.ctmdev.FoxTrotPro stringSeparator "separator"
- to reset: defaults delete com.ctmdev.FoxTrotPro stringSeparator
- the default separator is —, which is the “em dash” character (U+2014), and it can be typed on a qwerty keyboard, with the option shift “-” combination (do not use the “-” key from the numeric keypad). separator can be any unicode single or multi-character string; it is recommended to enclose it between straigth quotes in the terminal command.

Displaying found documents:

the contents of large documents is kept in a cache to speed up the highlight of found words in the preview (when the same document is viewed multiple times). By default, documents are kept 30 days in the preview cache; to change this duration (for FoxTrot Personal, type FoxTrot instead of FoxTrotPro):
- defaults write com.ctmdev.FoxTrotPro RemoveFromPreviewCacheAfterDays -int n
- to reset: defaults delete com.ctmdev.FoxTrotPro RemoveFromPreviewCacheAfterDays

Miscellaneous:

to disable compression of the network connections (do this on the client side):
- defaults write com.ctmdev.FoxTrot DisableCompression -bool YES
- to reset: defaults delete com.ctmdev.FoxTrot DisableCompression
to force displaying FoxTrot First Aid Window the next time FoxTrot is launched (may be necessary if pressing the command and option keys does not work):
- defaults write com.ctmdev.FoxTrotPro ShowFirstAidOnStartup -bool YES
to disable verification of the server certificate, when connecting to a FoxTrot Server (which is normally required only when connecting to a FoxTrot Server by specifying its hostname, and not for servers discovered automatically on the local network with Bonjour):
- defaults write com.ctmdev.FoxTrotPro DisableServerCertificateVerification -bool YES
- to reset: defaults delete com.ctmdev.FoxTrotPro DisableServerCertificateVerification

Advanced logging:

to enable detailed logging of indices startup (to debug error 999, for example):
- defaults write com.ctmdev.FoxTrotPro LogLaunchSource -bool YES
- to reset: defaults delete com.ctmdev.FoxTrotPro LogLaunchSource
- These messages will be logged in {home}/Library/FoxTrot/FoxTrotStarter.log
to enable logging of registration code network verification:
- defaults write com.ctmdev.FoxTrotPro LogNetworkRegistration -bool YES
- to reset: defaults delete com.ctmdev.FoxTrotPro LogNetworkRegistration
- To see these logged messages, launch Console.app (from /Applications/Utilities), select “system.log” in the left pane, type Network Registration in the toolbar search field.
to enable logging of Bonjour FoxTrot Server / FoxTrot Pro shared indices:
- defaults write com.ctmdev.FoxTrotPro LogNetworkServices -bool YES
- to reset: defaults delete com.ctmdev.FoxTrotPro LogNetworkServices
- To see these logged messages, launch Console.app (from /Applications/Utilities), select “system.log” in the left pane, type “Network Services” in the toolbar search field.
to enable logging all queries in the “FoxTrotIndexer.log” file, set LogQuery to true in the Config file (in the Finder, use the “Show package content” contextual menu on the index file, located in {home}/Library/FoxTrot):
- <LogQuery>true</LogQuery>
- These messages will be logged in {home}/Library/FoxTrot/FoxTrotIndexer.log