How does GoogleDesktop cache my word files?

SHAKESPEARE_SIS · 25-01-2006 08:01PM #1

GoogleDesktop is just too good at finding stuff!! It can find word documents that i haven't even saved. Anybody know how it does this? I've checked and found that COM Add-ins listed in Word has a "GoogleDesktopOfficeAdd-in" listed - and i verified that this is doing the caching. However, I'd like to know how. I wrote a basic word add-in, that generated a new document, saved it, then pasted some text into it. The pasted text ended up in the google desktop cache - so it doesn't look like it used the document save event in Word to trigger the caching. Anbody know what the trigger event is?

aidan_walsh · 25-01-2006 08:03PM

I would presume Google Desktop checks for open instances of Word, and uses the plugin to scan the document while its in memory.

SHAKESPEARE_SIS · 25-01-2006 08:16PM

Yea, but how does it scan it in memory? As a COM add-in (I think) that there are a limited number of triggers that it can implement handlers for eg. DocumentOpen, Document Close, Document Save etc. But I don't think that it uses the standard ones (at least the ones i know about)!

seamus · 25-01-2006 09:27PM

While you work on a document, Word progressively saves it in .tmp files - regardless of whether you've saved it, or have autosave turned on. Word will also create .wbk and .asd files containing the text of the document (Word Backup and AutoSave Document, respectively). I can only assume GoogleDesktop scans all files containing text, even if they're subsequently deleted.

SHAKESPEARE_SIS · 26-01-2006 01:33PM

Hi seamus, thanks for that but I don't think it uses temporary files on disk - if it did, then it wouldn't need to be a Word plug-in.

seamus · 26-01-2006 01:36PM

D'oh! Didn't read your original post properly

SHAKESPEARE_SIS · 30-01-2006 10:50AM

Or, if nobody knows how Google does this - anybody know if is possible to disable its Add-in from another Add-in?

How does GoogleDesktop cache my word files?

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