Existing users, 
 FoxTrot Professional Search - 2.5.1Networkable document indexing and retrieval solution. |
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Information Related to Version:
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Product Description:
FoxTrot Professional Search is a powerful find-by-content solution that offers precision tools for finding the proverbial "needle in a haystack" directly within PDF, HTML, word processing, e-mail and rich-media content and metadata. The product has been especially well received in legal (law firm and courts), media (newsrooms researchers, ad agencies and editors), mobile contexts (MacBook users with document collections) as well as by casual users stepping up from FoxTrot Personal Search or Apple's Spotlight.
By leveraging and extending Mac OS X's built-in Spotlight capabilities, FoxTrot Professional Search utilizes the latest Snow Leopard technologies, featuring document preview and full view capabilities, with secondary document-level search features. Users can manage multiple indexed collections effortlessly and time search index updates without even launching the application.
Feature Highlights:
* Multiple categories of relevance-ranked results
* Document preview and full view, with secondary document-level search
* Multiple indexed collections and timed updates without launching the application
* Client-server access to peer-to-peer and dedicated CTM FoxTrot Search servers
* Worldwide Unicode language support
FoxTrot Professional Search builds on years of experience in search functionality refined within CTM's PowerMail and FoxTrot Personal Search products, which continue to be enhanced. Version 2.5 introduces higher performance, an expanded timeline categorization as well as networked sharing of indexes:
When customers purchase a 5-user license, the application automatically acts as a peer-to-peer indexing server. With a 10-user license (or more), customers receive a full fledged client-server product with a server component that can be deployed any Mac OS X or Windows 7/Vista/XP with file sharing enabled, as well as on XServe and the new Mac mini Server or Windows Server 2003, Windows Server 2008 and Windows Server 2008R2. This makes FoxTrot Professional Search particularly suited in networked environments where sharing archived documents and metadata is paramount.
What's new in this version:
- Introduces the ability and user interface to share an index across a network and associate it with a file share mechanism or file server process, either co-located on the same machine or using a different network store
- Implemented Snow Leopard compatibility, notably when previewing a file using Quick Look
- Some Spotlight metadata importers bundled with Snow Leopard were not supported, for example for HTML files
- Implemented a new Date range categorizer which enable visual and numerical definition of a date interval for a document, along with a histogram showing frequency of hits in a given period
- Added Bonjour support for discovery of FoxTrot Search servers as well as peer-to-peer discovery of other FoxTrot Professional Search copies with multi-user licences and shared indices
- Implemented performance optimizations since version 2.0.4
- When FoxTrot Professional is connected to a remote FoxTrot Search Server or another FoxTrot Professional, stopped indices no longer appear in the search source list
- When clicking a stopped local index (displayed in gray) in the search source list, FoxTrot Professional now offers to start it
- 2.5.1 - fixed a literal string search bug introduced in 2.5
- Closing a document window could crash in certain circumstances
- Updated to build with Snow Leopard-compatible development tools
- When connecting to a remote FoxTrot Professional or Search server sharing multiple indices using different passwords, there no longer is an error message displayed for the indices using a different password.
- The search source list could sometimes collapse, or some search sources could be unchecked, when connecting to a new server
- Checking a server in the search source list now updates the list of indices shared by this server
- The "couldn't strip" warning on Leopard has been fixed
- The ibtool error when using the Styled Text Field on Leopard has been fixed
- Corrected an OmniOutliner importer compatibility issue
- Fixed "index is stopped; start it?" followed by crash when deleting an index
- We no longer display January 1, 1904 as the creation dates for text preview or short pane of un-locateable documents
- [Cosmetic] Changed label alignments in settings panes
Operating System Requirements:
This product is designed to run on the following operating systems:
- Mac OS X 10.5 Intel
- Mac OS X 10.5 PPC
- Mac OS X 10.4 Intel
- Mac OS X 10.4 PPC
Screenshots:
Download Links:
Download FoxTrot Professional Search Now (File Size: 6.3M)
Your Installed Versions:
Feedback Summary:
| This Version: | |||||
| Overall Rating: | Not rated (0.0) | Features: | Not rated (0.0) | Support: | Not rated (0.0) |
| Ease of Use: | Not rated (0.0) | Quality / Stability: | Not rated (0.0) | Price: | Not rated (0.0) |
Key to Types of Feedback:
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Usage Tips 
Developer Notes 
Commentary 
Featured Reviews
Agree with "F" Grade Reviews! Is CTM Voiding Registration Contracts? 
- Version: 2.0.2, 12/13/2008 09:00AM PST
(1 of 1 users found this comment useful)
EndlessFx
Most Recent Replies: View All 2 Replies
- Agree with "F" Grade Reviews! Is CTM Voiding Registration Contracts?
Very fast, but expensive, unreliable, and buggy - Version: 2.0.2, 12/9/2008 10:05AM PST
(1 of 1 users found this comment useful)
epc
I agree with the previous reviewer and CTM gets an F for support, but I disagree with his rating of the software with an A. I would give them a C+ at best.
It's quite expensive. Although its price is similar to Devon Think Pro Office, DTPO is a more refined product and a beta for version 2 will be released soon.
Indexing can take a very long time. This may be due to errors or due to the application actually working, but sometimes it's hard to tell. For example, after 5 hours indexing a 109 MB folder the index size was already 173 MB, which did not make sense. The folder I selected had less than 800 files, yet the index in FoxTrot Professional Search showed that almost 2,000 files had been indexed. I had to manually remove the "Main Index" file from my hard drive. For some reason it seems that removing it directly from within FoxTrot Professional's "Indexed Data" was not sufficient, although this process did work fine later with 2 other Indices.
Sometimes when indexing a folder certain files are Blacklisted. Unfortunately this is not consistent. Removing the index and indexing the same folder again has resulted in no files at all being Blacklisted.
Searches are lightning fast, but FoxTrot does not always find all the relevant documents. In one test it found many irrelevant results. I had a Folder named Influence, and searching for the word Influence showed the folder and all its contents. Half the contents were irrelevant and did not contain the word Influence. They were just random files I copied for the test. Typically all of the files inside my folders are already classified correctly, but I wanted to test this issue.
On another test, I copied a word from a PDF document inside an 85 MB subfolder and searched for it. Surprisingly, neither Spotlight nor Houdah Spot found the document. More surprisingly FoxTrot also failed to show any results. DTPO correctly showed the document.
One issue to consider is that although FoxTrot launches fast and the search speed is impressive, displaying the results may be very slow. For example, with one search it took less than a second to find all relevant results, but it took over a minute to actually display the result in the first PDF document. It was faster to launch the identified document and do a search withing Adobe Reader.
On a positive note, Index-size seems to be smaller in FoxTrot than in DTPO. This was noticeable especially with larger Folders.
Changing the name of an indexed folder in the Finder results in the folder no longer being recognized by FoxTrot as a "location." This is potentially a HUGE issue, since information will not be available for that Index. DTPO did not have that problem.
My overall impressions are that FoxTrot Professional Search feels like a beta version, unreliable, often unresponsive, and inconsistent in terms of behavior. Activity Monitor often showed FTStarter and FTIndexer as Not Responding. Apparently this is normal behavior, but to find out I had to browse the Internet. Their Help and Manual are not too useful. Emailing them directly apparently was a waste of my time.
FoxTrot has great potential, but based on my past experience with CTM I'm concerned that they'll release bug fixes as a version 2.5 or 3.0 and charge for an upgrade. I paid a few times for PowerMail and its respective "upgrades" and by version 5 I decided to move on to something else. If/when they fix this program, I'll give it a second look. As it is right now I would not purchase it.
Dual 2 GHz PPC G5
8 GB RAM
OS X 10.5.5
FoxTrot Professional Search 2.0.3
It's quite expensive. Although its price is similar to Devon Think Pro Office, DTPO is a more refined product and a beta for version 2 will be released soon.
Indexing can take a very long time. This may be due to errors or due to the application actually working, but sometimes it's hard to tell. For example, after 5 hours indexing a 109 MB folder the index size was already 173 MB, which did not make sense. The folder I selected had less than 800 files, yet the index in FoxTrot Professional Search showed that almost 2,000 files had been indexed. I had to manually remove the "Main Index" file from my hard drive. For some reason it seems that removing it directly from within FoxTrot Professional's "Indexed Data" was not sufficient, although this process did work fine later with 2 other Indices.
Sometimes when indexing a folder certain files are Blacklisted. Unfortunately this is not consistent. Removing the index and indexing the same folder again has resulted in no files at all being Blacklisted.
Searches are lightning fast, but FoxTrot does not always find all the relevant documents. In one test it found many irrelevant results. I had a Folder named Influence, and searching for the word Influence showed the folder and all its contents. Half the contents were irrelevant and did not contain the word Influence. They were just random files I copied for the test. Typically all of the files inside my folders are already classified correctly, but I wanted to test this issue.
On another test, I copied a word from a PDF document inside an 85 MB subfolder and searched for it. Surprisingly, neither Spotlight nor Houdah Spot found the document. More surprisingly FoxTrot also failed to show any results. DTPO correctly showed the document.
One issue to consider is that although FoxTrot launches fast and the search speed is impressive, displaying the results may be very slow. For example, with one search it took less than a second to find all relevant results, but it took over a minute to actually display the result in the first PDF document. It was faster to launch the identified document and do a search withing Adobe Reader.
On a positive note, Index-size seems to be smaller in FoxTrot than in DTPO. This was noticeable especially with larger Folders.
Changing the name of an indexed folder in the Finder results in the folder no longer being recognized by FoxTrot as a "location." This is potentially a HUGE issue, since information will not be available for that Index. DTPO did not have that problem.
My overall impressions are that FoxTrot Professional Search feels like a beta version, unreliable, often unresponsive, and inconsistent in terms of behavior. Activity Monitor often showed FTStarter and FTIndexer as Not Responding. Apparently this is normal behavior, but to find out I had to browse the Internet. Their Help and Manual are not too useful. Emailing them directly apparently was a waste of my time.
FoxTrot has great potential, but based on my past experience with CTM I'm concerned that they'll release bug fixes as a version 2.5 or 3.0 and charge for an upgrade. I paid a few times for PowerMail and its respective "upgrades" and by version 5 I decided to move on to something else. If/when they fix this program, I'll give it a second look. As it is right now I would not purchase it.
Dual 2 GHz PPC G5
8 GB RAM
OS X 10.5.5
FoxTrot Professional Search 2.0.3
Only support is you can call Switzerland! - Version: 2.0.2, 10/3/2008 07:30AM PST
(2 of 2 users found this comment useful)
hmno--2008
Great product at a premium price UNTIL you need support. The program crashed my Mac and it took 2 emails to get a response, which was if I wanted to I could call them in Switzerland.
Take a look at the website: exactly 2 questions on the FAQ page. They reference an applet to use when the program crashes but there isn't a link or any other way to get it. OK, at least I can join their "moderated forum," right? Wrong! It's been 4-5 days and no word about being given any access to that.
I'm a physician and I invested in this program to be able to access my pdfs and other documents. It's a useful program, all right, and worth the price to me, but it's now cost me much more in lost time and productivity than it's worth.
A for software + F for support = F in my book. Caveat emptor!
Take a look at the website: exactly 2 questions on the FAQ page. They reference an applet to use when the program crashes but there isn't a link or any other way to get it. OK, at least I can join their "moderated forum," right? Wrong! It's been 4-5 days and no word about being given any access to that.
I'm a physician and I invested in this program to be able to access my pdfs and other documents. It's a useful program, all right, and worth the price to me, but it's now cost me much more in lost time and productivity than it's worth.
A for software + F for support = F in my book. Caveat emptor!
I purchased the expensive Foxtrot Professional. The software probably has much more usability than I now get, but the developer provides next to nothing in documentation and provides next to nothing in support. If you don't understand how to FULLY use the application, the developer does NOT explain how to use his product, provide effective instructions or complete documentation, provide effective support, the big F for failure is in effect.
Actually, the contract should be voided! Either negligence should be corrected right away or money should immediately be refunded!