Add-on for LibreELEC/Kodi plocate Search

plocate Search | tools.plocate.search is a LibreELEC/Kodi add-on that provides efficient offline search for your multimedia library. Using plocate and updatedb, this add-on lets you quickly locate files within your library even when you're offline. It integrates seamlessly with Kodi, offering an intuitive graphical interface to search and browse your media files.

Table of Contents

• Features
• Installation
• Usage
• Configuration
• Dependencies
• Binaries Release
• Contributing
• License

Features

• Offline Search: Utilize plocate to perform fast, offline searches within your multimedia library.
• Database Updates: Automatically update the search database when new storage devices are connected.
• Flexible Search: Search across multiple databases stored in a designated directory.
• Intuitive Interface: Easy-to-use search interface within Kodi.
• File Navigation: Navigate to directories or play files directly from the search results.
• Order by Size: Option to sort search results by file size.
• Color-Coded Results: Different colors for directories and files in search results.

Installation

1. Download the Add-on:

   • For aarch64 architecture (tested on a Raspberry Pi): Download the tools.plocate.search_aarch64_RPi4.zip file from the releases section of this repository.
   • For x86_64 architecture (PC, Intel NUC, Nettops, Virtual Machines and Laptops with x86 Hardware (64Bit)): Download the tools.plocate.search_x86_64.zip file from the releases section of this repository.

2. Install via Kodi:

   • Open Kodi and navigate to Add-ons.
   • Select Install from zip file.
   • Locate and select the downloaded tools.plocate.search_<architecture>.zip file.
   • Wait for the add-on installed notification.

3. Post-Installation Script:

   • The installation process will automatically run a script to copy and modify necessary udev rules.
   • It will also make the update_index.sh script executable.

Usage

1. Search for Files:

   • Open the plocate Search add-on from the Kodi Add-ons menu.
   • Enter your search query in the dialog box.
   • The search results will be displayed, showing the file paths.

2. Ordering Results by Size:

   • After search results are displayed, an option to order by size in descending order will be available.
   • Select this option to sort the results by file size.

3. Navigate or Play Files:

   • Select a file to play it directly.
   • Select a directory to open it in the Kodi Videos file browser.

Configuration

• Search Options:

  • You can configure various search options through the add-on settings in Kodi.
  • Modify options such as case-insensitive searches, regular expressions, basename searches, displaying the full path of the item or just the base file name and parent, for displaying conveniently less info, and searching only currently connected devices or including disconnected ones.

• Index Management:

  • The add-on automatically handles index updates for connected storage devices.
  • Indexes are stored in /storage/.kodi/addons/tools.plocate.search/resources/databases/.
  • Each index is named after the UUID of the storage device partition, ensuring uniqueness for every drive you connect to your LibreELEC device.

Dependencies

• plocate: plocate is a locate based on posting lists, completely replacing mlocate with a much faster (and smaller) index.
• updatedb: Utility to update the database used by plocate.
• LibreELEC: Built for LibreELEC 12.0.1 and depends on the udev rules at /storage/.config/udev.rules.d/95-udevil-mount.rules to index newly connected devices.

Binaries Release

The plocate and updatedb binaries (version 1.1.23) are now compiled automatically by GitHub Actions for both x86_64 and aarch64 architectures. You can inspect the compilation workflow in .github/workflows/build-and-release.yml to see how the source is fetched, patched, built, and packaged into a release on every new version tag push.

These binaries are compatible with LibreELEC 12.0.1 and have been tested on a Raspberry Pi 4 (aarch64) and a virtual machine running on a Linux box (x86_64).

Contributing

We welcome contributions to tools.plocate.search. To contribute:

1. Fork the repository.
2. Create a new branch with a descriptive name and change what you want.
3. Submit a pull request with a detailed description of your changes.

License

This project is licensed under the MIT License. See the LICENSE file for details.

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Additional Information

• Automatic Database Updates:

  • When a new storage device is connected, the add-on detects the device and runs updatedb to update the search index. It uses a custom udev rule at /storage/.config/udev.rules.d/95-udevil-mount.rules to run the script that updates the index for that partition, in the background using /usr/bin/systemd-run --on-active=1 so it doesn't affect the normal operation of udevil.
  • The index is named using the UUID of the connected device partition to ensure uniqueness.

• Efficient Search:

  • By combining multiple .db files, searches span across all connected and previously indexed storage devices.
  • This ensures comprehensive search results for your entire multimedia library.

Example Usage and Performance

Developed on a Raspberry Pi 4 with LibreELEC 12.0.1 and Kodi 21.1.0, plocate indexes a 5TB external drive containing 17,502 multimedia files in about 12 seconds on a cold start, when no database is present and the entire disk must be scanned (i.e., the worst-case scenario).

LibreELEC:~ # time /storage/.kodi/addons/tools.plocate.search/resources/lib/updatedb --database-root /var/media/easystore/ --output /storage/plinkr/plocate/plocate.db
real 0m 12.10s
user 0m 0.64s
sys 0m 0.23s

Subsequent runs are faster, taking less than 1 second (depending on file changes):

LibreELEC:~ # time /storage/.kodi/addons/tools.plocate.search/resources/lib/updatedb --database-root /var/media/easystore/ --output /storage/plinkr/plocate/plocate.db
real 0m 0.77s
user 0m 0.54s
sys 0m 0.23s

Development Notes

This add‑on is stable and I use it on a daily basis. If you'd like to request a new feature or report an issue, please open one in this repository's Issues.

It uses a modified version of /usr/lib/udev/rules.d/95-udevil-mount.rules copied to /storage/.config/udev.rules.d/95-udevil-mount.rules to run updatedb and create the index for the connected device after it has been mounted by udevil. The script runs in the background to avoid interfering with normal operations.

The add-on for Kodi returns search results and allows you to open directories or play media files directly. Configuration options enable various plocate behaviors, such as case-insensitive searches, regular expressions, basename searches, and searching only currently connected devices or including disconnected ones. This last option is useful if you want to find some file on a disk that you had previously connected, but you are unsure on what drive it is.

Currently, there is an issue deleting the /storage/.config/udev.rules.d/95-udevil-mount.rules file after uninstalling, so if you uninstall the add-on, please delete the file by hand. You can do so from the shell:

LibreELEC:~ # rm /storage/.config/udev.rules.d/95-udevil-mount.rules

TODO

• Make plocate a LibreELEC add-on, so it can support all its platforms.
• Document how to compile plocate for LibreELEC on any architecture, by following the existing GitHub Actions workflow as a template.
• Add an option to rebuild the index of any connected device from the configuration, on demand.
• Find a way to clean up custom udev rules after uninstallation.

For more details, please refer to the source code within this repository.