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Kat Desktop Search Environment is an open source framework designed to allow KDE applications to index and retrieve files.
Metadata, fulltext and thumbnails are extracted from documents, images, mp3 and other media allowing quick and accurate information retrieval.
Kat is similar to the Windows application Google Desktop Search and the Mac OSX utility Spotlight. It is completely written in C++, using Qt3, KDE and KIO libraries.
Thanks to inotify, the indexes are updated automatically whenever a file is created, modified or deleted so that searches are always performed on the latest snapshot of your disk.
The extended attributes of the files are used to keep track of the files that have already been indexed in order to allow incremental indexation.
The application is based on the extensible kfile plugin architecture of KDE in order to facilitate the creation of new media managers for emerging file formats. Kat is the first KDE application using the new fulltext kfile plugins.
Information retrieval relies on the powerful SQLite3 embedded database engine.
Supported text formats
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PDF
Adobe
Portable Document Format |
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PS
Adobe Postscript
Document |
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HTML
HyperText Markup Language
Document |
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RTF
Rich Text Format
Document |
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SXW
OpenOffice 1.1 Writer
Document |
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SXI
OpenOffice 1.1 Impress
Presentation |
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SXC
OpenOffice 1.1 Calc
Spreadsheet |
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SXM
OpenOffice 1.1 Math
Formula |
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ODT OpenDocument Text Document
OpenOffice 2.0 Writer
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ODP OpenDocument Presentation
OpenOffice 2.0 Impress
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ODS OpenDocument Spreadsheet
OpenOffice 2.0 Calc
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ODF OpenDocument Formula
OpenOffice 2.0 Math
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ODC OpenDocument Chart
OpenOffice 2.0 Calc
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BBL, BIB
BibTex
Bibliographic database
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MDL
Molecular Database Limited
Molecule
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DEB
Debian
Software package |
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DBK
DocBook
Document |
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DVI
Device Independent
Document |
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GNUMERIC
Gnumeric
Spreadsheet |
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LYX
Lyx
Document |
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MAN
Linux Man Page
Document
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TEX
Latex
Document |
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TXT Text Document |
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KWD KOffice KWord Document
ODT OpenDocument Text Document
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KPR KOffice KPresenter Presentation
ODP OpenDocument Presentation
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KSP KOffice KSpread Spreadsheet
ODS OpenDocument Spreadsheet
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KFO KOffice KFormula Formula
ODF OpenDocument Formula
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DOC
Microsoft Word
Document |
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XLS
Microsoft Excel
Spreadsheet
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PPT
Microsoft PowerPoint
Presentation
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more to come...
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Supported metadata formats
In order to collect meta information about the files Kat uses the built-in KDE kfile plugins.
This means that Kat is natively able to extract metadata information from the following formats: au, avi, bmp, cpp, dds, deb, diff, dvi, exr, flac, font, h, iso, ics, jpeg, m3u, mp3, mpc, ogg, palm, pcs, pdf, png, pnm, po, ps, rgb, rpm, rproject, sid, tga, theora, tiff, torrent, trash, ts, vcf, wav, xbm, xpm.
Expanding Kat's capabilities
The creation of fulltext and metadata plugins for Kat is a simple process. If you need to index and retrieve information from files saved using a proprietary format not included among those already supported by Kat, you can easily create a new plugin. If you are not a programmer you can post a request in our WIKI and let the Kat team produce the plugin for you.
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