To make the app. more useful for non-programmers, from version 1.1.5, the default option is to search for text outside of the source code comment lines. It makes the app. more useful for people who want to search and filter text across multiple files. If you want to search for tags inside the source code comments only, uncheck the option 'Search for notes outside of the comment lines' in the general preferences pane.

Supported comment formats:

C-based, Javascript ...

   // TODO

   /* TODO  : Consider not passing in pointer. */

   // TODO: Explain with diagram. Use simple markdown ![Use Case Sequence Diagram](../../Documentation/Networking.png)

   // FIXME: Markdown link inside a comment [Sample link](http://linkurl). The link will be clickable in table row.

   // DONE: Convert it to static table.

   // OPTIMIZE 
   // We need to put OS system detection back
   // to make following work.

   // TODO  : Handle multiple header values

   //    TODO Verify all cases can handle this.

   /* TODO For details see the official documentation
      http://linktodocumentation. */
      
   /* Let's try FIXME multiline comment 
      spreading across 
      few lines. 
   */
       

Ruby, Bash ...

   # FIXME: Sample fix

   =begin
   TODO: Ruby way
   to have multiline comments.
   =end
      

Perl

   =pod
   TODO: Perl way to comment out more than one line of Perl 
   is to surround those lines with Pod directives.
   =cut
      

Is there a support for _X_ programming language comments in Pattern Digger ?

A programming language comment delimiters are user configurable. If you're using direct version of Pattern Digger you can edit the default configuration file at

~/Library/Application Support/com.tagtaxa.Pattern-Digger/comment_format.xml

For the Mac App Store version

~/Library/Containers/com.tagtaxa.Pattern-Digger/Data/Library/Application\ Support/com.tagtaxa.Pattern-Digger/comment_format.xml

I have files that contain data in plain text format with different extensions, like .cfg, .dat and .tex. Why those files are not scanned by Pattern Digger ?

Pattern Digger can scan any file that contains data in plain text, source code, xml ... It relies on to Uniform Type Identifier (UTI) to identify types of data inside a file. Without using UTI, determining all the possible text file types could become impossible or at least very slow.

If you have files that contain data in plain text, but with 'custom' extension and they weren't recognized by Pattern Digger, you can make these files visible to Pattern Digger by simply adding a UTI reference to Pattern Digger's Info.plist file.

• Control-click on Pattern Digger.app in the Finder and chose Show Package Contents from the pop-up menu.
• Navigate into Contents, then open Info.plist with any text editor.
• Find UTExportedTypeDeclarations section in the Info.plist

         <key>UTExportedTypeDeclarations</key>
         <array>
         	<dict>
         		<key>UTTypeConformsTo</key>
         		<array>
         			<string>public.xml</string>
         			....
      

Now add section for your custom file extension, i.e for .cs C# files:

         <key>UTTypeConformsTo</key>
         <array>
            <string>public.source-code</string>
         </array>
         <key>UTTypeDescription</key>
         <string>C# Source File</string>
         <key>UTTypeIdentifier</key>
            <string>com.microsoft.csharp-source</string>
            <key>UTTypeTagSpecification</key>
            <dict>
               <key>public.filename-extension</key>
               <array>
                  <string>cs</string>
               </array>
            </dict>
         </dict>
      

To make the changes take effect, start Terminal and type (here it is supposed that you put Patter Digger app. in Downloads folder, if not just replace the path with your own path to Pattern Digger.app:

touch "/Users/john/Downloads/Pattern Digger.app"

Rescan. Now you should see all the notes from these files in the results table. If you find it complicated you can always email support@tagtaxa.com