STUTTGART, Germany. Vincent Stahl, computer artist and software developer, has released Depeche View, a realtime text browser tool. “The speed is made from many little steps”, says the author, “like loading all text files from a directory tree into memory, and a new presentation concept: there is no switching between files, but all contents are shown in one window. The user interface is reduced to the essential, without pulldown menus or dialogue boxes. A word is searched by typing it. Phrases are searched, bookmarked, or copied to clipboard by a mouse click. Putting this all together, Depeche View provides a unique realtime behaviour.”
The tool requires no installation, and therefore runs from any USB stick. Search operators are supported: typing “foo OR bar NOT bottle” finds all lines containing “foo” or “bar”, but not “bottle”. A config file allows to define own commands, e.g. to open files in an editor, or to extend the syntax highlighting. Bookmark lists present the remembered words in a clearly readable way.
Depeche View Base is freeware. A commercial edition with further scripting capabilities is also available.
This tool is primarily for software developers running many repeated searches within source code. Most of the time, software development is search, copy and modify – instead of reinventing the wheel, some Open Source is downloaded, then searched for a solution, to copy and integrate code parts into a project. Depeche View supports this process by reducing the required mouse clicks to a minimum.
But whenever there is much ASCII text to filter, like CSV exports from spreadsheets, logfiles of a webserver, or html documentation, non-developers may find this tool useful as well.
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