Kat Desktop Search Environment

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Kat Desktop Search Environment

A screenshot of Kat Catalog Browser, a frontend to Kat
Developer:	Roberto Cappuccio and the Kat team
Latest release:	0.6.4 / October 12, 2005
OS:	Linux
Use:	Desktop search
License:	GPL
Website:	http://kat.mandriva.org

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. Apparently the project has been discontinued.

Kat is similar to the Windows programs WhereIsIt and Google Desktop Search, the GNOME application Beagle and the Mac OS X utility Spotlight. It is completely written in C++, using Qt3, KDE and KIO libraries.

The framework 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 SQLite3 embedded database engine. The development team is currently working to allow Kat to use other DBMS like MySQL and PostgreSQL.

1 Features
2 Development
3 Mascot
4 External links

[edit] Features

Kat features a developer API (Application Program Interface) that allows the creation of clients, meaning that developers can add Kat search capabilities to their own programs. The Kat API is documented through ApiDox.
It is also possible to create new fulltext plugins to give Kat the ability to extract textual information from files saved using proprietary data file formats.

**Supported fulltext formats**
	PDF Adobe Portable Document Format		PS Adobe Postscript Document
	HTML HyperText Markup Language Document		RTF Rich Text Format Document
	SXW OpenOffice 1.1 Writer Document		SXI OpenOffice 1.1 Impress Presentation
	SXC OpenOffice 1.1 Calc Spreadsheet		SXM OpenOffice 1.1 Math Formula
	ODT OpenOffice 2.0 Writer Document		ODP OpenOffice 2.0 Impress Presentation
	ODS OpenOffice 2.0 Calc Spreadsheet		ODF OpenOffice 2.0 Math Formula
	ODC OpenOffice 2.0 Calc Chart		BBL, BIB BibTex Bibliographic database
	MDL Moldecular Database Limited Molecule		DEB Debian Software package
	DBK DocBook Document		DVI Device Independent Document
	GNUMERIC Gnumeric Spreadsheet		LYX Lyx Document
	MAN Linux Man Document		TEX LaTex Document
	TXT Text Document		KWD KOffice KWord Document
	KPR KOffice KPresenter Presentation		KSP KOffice KSpread Spreadsheet
	KFO KOffice KFormula Formula		DOC Microsoft Word Document
	XLS Microsoft Excel Spreadsheet		PPT Microsoft PowerPoint Presentation

[edit] Development

Kat is developed by Roberto Cappuccio and Laurent Montel, with help from an open source Kat community. The documentation for Kat was entirely developed by the community through a wiki. As of October 2006, development has been stopped.

[edit] Mascot

The mascot of the project is called Kawaii, which means "cute" in Japanese. Kawaii is a small and extremely curious gray cat with deep yellow eyes. It was created by Roberto Cappuccio.