incremental search in database slow

[dspady]

When I search for an author in my *.bdb database the algorithm appears to be an incremental one in that when I type the first letter or two the system takes forever to respond and as the word evolves the typing becomes faster and the results appear.
Thus if I search for e.g. Spady, when I type 'Spa', the system will often let me type "S" but then I have to wait until the cursor blinks so I can type 'p'. If I try to type "spady" all at once, it is very slow and when the word finally shows up, some letters might be missed. This makes me think that Bookends is looking for all "S"s and then all "Sp" and then all "Spa" and so forth.
Is there a way to turn off this incremental search and allow me to type the whole word and then have the search be carried out.

Thanks

Don

[Jon]

The live search works with whatever is entered in the box when it is performed (there is an internal timer that is reset to 0 every time a key is pressed, so if you type without pause the search doesn't start until you stop). So if you type "spady" in one go, the search is for "spady", not "s", "sp", "spa", etc.

The search is very quick. If you find it slow it may be a problem with the index, or it may be that your database cache is too small. The first can be taken care of by Rebuilding the database. The second can be done by increasing the cache in preferences and relaunching Bookends. If you have > 5000 references, you might increase it, perhaps to 15 MB if you have 10000 references, for example.

Jon
Sonny Software

[dspady]

Jon
Thanks for the information. I have a 20mb cache for about 5300 references. I rebuilt my database (It was about 2 months old) and that has made a big improvement in speed. Apparently this needs to be done periodically, just as a matter of course.

Don

[Jon]

Hi, the cache is too large (that will not cause any problems, but will delay launching a bit). I'd move it down to 12-14 MB. As for rebuilding, it does not normally need to be done periodically. But it does help if there is a problem, in this case apparently with an index (rebuilding also recovers unused space, if that's an issue).

Jon
Sonny Software

[dspady]

Re cache: will do.

Thanks