[MPMoriarty]

I was just wondering...

With any developer being able to plug Spotlight metadata indexing and searching into their apps, couldn't someone create a beefed up metadata Finder-like app?

Able to browse, sort, and add different types of metadata to your files. Then be able to search for your custom metadata in Spotlight's global search utility.

What I am trying to say is if it's possible for someone to create a BeOS Tracker-like app for Mac OS X now that Spotlight and its SDK is on the scene?

Mike

[Chuckit]

http://forums.macnn.com/showthread.p...hreadid=218359

[MPMoriarty]

That sorta helped, but it didn't answer my question fully.

I was simply asking if it was possible at all for a developer to create an über metadata Finder that allows you to apply new types of metadata to your files. I mean the Spotlight SDK allowing developers to add new metadata to the Spotlight system (adding new metadata tags to categorize user files) and having this app and the system-wide Spotlight system pick them up.

Mike

[Anubis IV]

Sure. There'd be nothing to stop, say, the next version of Path Finder from having those capabilities built in.

[hmurchison2001]

Originally posted by Anubis IV:
Sure. There'd be nothing to stop, say, the next version of Path Finder from having those capabilities built in.

Yes Path Finder may be a big beneficiary of Spotlight. I wouldn't be suprised to seem them be one of the first to use it.

[Diggory Laycock]

Originally posted by MPMoriarty:
That sorta helped, but it didn't answer my question fully.

I was simply asking if it was possible at all for a developer to create an über metadata Finder that allows you to apply new types of metadata to your files. I mean the Spotlight SDK allowing developers to add new metadata to the Spotlight system (adding new metadata tags to categorize user files) and having this app and the system-wide Spotlight system pick them up.

Mike

You can't just start adding arbitrary meta-data fields to files - the kinds of meta-data that is indexed from a file is fixed by the SpotLight Plug-In for that filetype.

[MPMoriarty]

Oh.

So basically what you are saying is that even though SpotLight is pretty flexible and scalable, it all depends upon what file types you are using in your application.

See, I thought developers might be able to extend SpotLight's functionality with current file types by adding additional metadata.

Like someone said earlier about Path Finder.

Would it be possible for the developer of Path Finder to add new functionality to SpotLight with new metadata capabilities for current files on your system?

That is basically what my question is.

I'm sorry if I don't make much sense. I guess what I am trying to ask is if SpotLight and its SDK metadata abilities are limited in its functionality by only the importers for file types Apple provides. Or could developers add to these importers?

Mike

[Thinine]

Yes, developers can write a Spotlight importer if they use a custom file format. Apple intends to include as many importers as they can for the final release but they can't do them all.

As for user extendable metadata, I think it's unnecessary in all but a few cases.

[Catfish_Man]

Originally posted by Thinine:
Yes, developers can write a Spotlight importer if they use a custom file format. Apple intends to include as many importers as they can for the final release but they can't do them all.

As for user extendable metadata, I think it's unnecessary in all but a few cases.

How about CVS. Add a bit of metadata allowing you to search for all the files in a specific project, or a specific revision, or a branch, etc... Currently there's no simple way I can think of to do that using Spotlight, and the complex ways I can think of don't seem like they'd work very well (wrapping the file in a custom bundle).