General

Threads: G eneric F inder find your files by 2 categories of filters. Filename patterns and content filter.
Both filter categories are optional.
You start your search by selecting a folder and click on Symbol
Every (filtered) file under selected folder counts. If there is no content filter we are done and all found files appaer within result table on right side.
Depending on you directory structure this can cost some time. Next time searching from the same folder is much faster because previous result is cached in memory

If you enable Content search, a new input bar is seen at the bottom of the window.
Searching with content filter goes like this. First scanning selected directory.
After scan task is finished the parallelized content search starts. This is where Threads come into the play.
All previously scanned files are shared with multiple threads. Amount of configurable threads are hardware dependent.
Hint: If you have fast work station with 16 o 32 kernels/CPU you should not choose highest number.
Limited factor on modern computers is IO. Even for thoose who have superfast SSD-CHIPS inside.
I found out 8 threads for my computer is a good value. It is a little bit try and error.
Together with search results you can also see how much time was needed for this.

Scaling 100% is default value of scale. Some screens have so high resolutions that Generic Finder Application could look too small in general. Exactly for this we have the scaling factor.

Deviating from general scale you could give extra size for the default viewer which is the hex viewer.
This hex viewer pops up if file type is not recognized as text file. You define what a text file is in tab Text View ( decription below )

Status Bar shows you selected file and size

Dark Theme: GF's alternative look

Cycle Previews Define your (Meta) Hotkeys combination ( SHIFT, CTRL, ALT) to change previews for the current selection.
If you watch an interesting XML file and want to see how this files looks within normal text view for example. Or as hex view.

Tree

Show
Date + Size within the Tree. Mouse Over Info ( Tooltip). Directories only.

Hide a list of folders where you do not want to search
Folder names must be separated by ;
Check Use Filter to make this option work.

Start Folder: Define this if you oftren start searching from a special folder.
Can be seen as home search folder.

Text View

File Extensions: Most important is to define how GF recognizes a text. GF looks at the filename extension like .txt or .cpp or .html and so on. If you click (preview) on an unknown file (without known extension) GF treats this as unknown and comes up with the hex viewer. But if you see text inside hexviewer on the right side and think I want to see this as normal text you could 'cycle' to the next prieview. Or choose context menu "Open with...". If you have more of this unknown (text) files and you are sure that these files contains text you should add the new file extension ( .xyz for example) or whatever. GF considers now your text file definitions within next search/preview.

Font Size: If you generally are satisfied with the overall size of G eneric F inder and want to adjust Text Viewer font size then this is the right place to do.

Ruler: Checking this gives you a ruler with real line numbers of the file. Considerung also line wrap.

Auto Wrap: People who dig/search mostly for log files, source code, should let this unchecked. Others who are looking for human readable text check this option.

Line Info Pos: A little green field with the count of line info appear tope left, bottom right or not according to your choice.

Cache Control

Using cache can be on or off.
If cache is enabled directory can be emptied out manually if wanted.
If cache is disabled, cache directory will be deleted.

GF saves thumbs (if view activated )
Also important for speed: If 'Open with ...' process output is redirected into GF.
Example pdf2txt or epub2txt. These programs load special files, convert them into txt file which will be saved in cache folder. Next time starting such a process with same file cache ist used instead of running the program again.
Good value for cache is 1-3 GB.