Understanding the search box¶

This guide expands on the information contained in the the search box section of the Launcher interface description.

Main functionality¶

A filter is applied as you type, so there is no need to press Enter or click anything to perform the search.
All searches are case insensitive.
To reset the filter and get the full list of games, click on the cross icon next to the text input field.
Whitespace breaks the search input into separate tokens or search patterns.

Search patterns¶

Simple patterns¶

The simplest way to search is to use the substring search functionality. For example, type m to get all the games containing an ‘M’ or ‘m’ in description, and type monkey to get games like “The Curse of Monkey Island (Demo/Windows)”, “Infinite Monkeys” or “Three Monkeys, One Cage”. Ensure the search pattern does not contain :/=/~ characters and it does not start with the ! character.

Searching configuration key values¶

Advanced patterns¶

To search for game properties listed in the Configuration file there are 3 available patterns:

Type	Description	Example	Example result
<key>=<value>	check exact value of `<key>`	`gameid=reversion2`	games with exact gameid “reversion2”
<key>:<value>	search substring at `<key>`	`description::`	games with “:” substring at description
<key>~<value>	match wildcard against `<key>`	`path~D:\\games\\*`	games located at Windows folder D:\Games\

Note

Escape the \ character used in Windows paths by using \\ when using wildcards.

Available configuration keys¶

You can use any configuration key as a <key> part of the search pattern.

Here are some more examples:

show_fps=true - games with “Show FPS” option set to true
extra~?* - games with non-empty extra part of the description
guioptions:noLang - games without displayed language
keymap_engine-default_LCLK:MOUSE_RIGHT - games with right mouse button remapped to left mouse button

Abbrevating configuration keys¶

To abbreviate the 6 most common configuration keys, just type any prefix instead of full strings for those keys:

Full key	Description	Examples
`description`	game description as displayed on the game list	`d:monkey` `desc:monkey` `descr:monkey` `description:monkey`
`engineid`	internal ID of the game engine	`e:ags` `engine:monkey` `engineid:monkey`
`gameid`	internal ID of the game	`g:monkey` `game:monkey` `gameid:monkey`
`language`	internal ID of the language (usually 2 letter code like “de”/”en”/”fr”/”jp”	`l=en` `lang=en` `language=en`
`path`	Filesystem path for the game	`p~D:` `path~D:`
`platform`	internal ID of the platform	`pl~windows` `platform~windows`

Note

The platform key can’t be abbrevated to p, since p is already used for path.

Inverting the search pattern¶

To invert the search result, prefix the search pattern with the`!` character. For example:

!GOG - games that don’t contain “GOG” substring in description
!lang=ru - games not in Russian languange
!p:demo - games that don’t have “demo” substring in game path
!engine~sword# - games not made with “sword1” and “sword2” engines (but “sword25” is fine)

How do the search patterns work together?¶

If you have provided several search patterns, only games that match all of them are displayed.

The matches are independent and not ordered, which means that if you search for Open Quest, you get all the games with words “Open” and “Quest” in description. The results would contain games like “Open Quest (Windows/English)” and “Police Quest IV: Open Season (DOS/Demo)”.

Here are some more examples of complex requests:

engine=ags path:steamapps !extra:Steam - AGS games at your /SteamApps/ folder, but not marked as Steam game at “extra”
e=wintermute l= - Wintermute games with empty “language” property
pl:dos lang=he desc~a* - Hebrew games for DOS with description starting with letter “A”