[Spliff]

I don't quite understand the excitement around Tiger's so-called "Smart Folders." What are some examples of this feature? How is it useful?

[RonnieoftheRose]

Originally Posted by Spliff

I don't quite understand the excitement around Tiger's so-called "Smart Folders." What are some examples of this feature? How is it useful?

Say you have a project called 'Spliff'. Every file you create about Spliff or containing the word will appear in the smart folder no matter where you store those files. A Safari bookmark, a Word document, a PowerPoint presentation, whatever, will appear in your smart folder. It's an easy way of collating data in one virtual folder that updates itself automatically.

[Spliff]

Originally Posted by RonnieoftheRose

Say you have a project called 'Spliff'. Every file you create about Spliff or containing the word will appear in the smart folder no matter where you store those files. A Safari bookmark, a Word document, a PowerPoint presentation, whatever, will appear in your smart folder. It's an easy way of collating data in one virtual folder that updates itself automatically.

You mean the Finder will automatically move the "Spliff" files there? Do smart folders utilize the Spotlight database?

[RonnieoftheRose]

Originally Posted by Spliff

You mean the Finder will automatically move the "Spliff" files there? Do smart folders utilize the Spotlight database?

You create them using Spotlight. The Finder doesn't move them there. It creates links to all related files in one virtual folder. You can delete the smart folder and your files won't be touched.

[Spliff]

Originally Posted by RonnieoftheRose

You create them using Spotlight. The Finder doesn't move them there. It creates links to all related files in one virtual folder. You can delete the smart folder and your files won't be touched.

Okay, I get it. Thanks.

[RonnieoftheRose]

And Microsoft is copying it exactly.

[gorgonzola]

That's OK, because it's not a new idea.

[nickm]

Originally Posted by RonnieoftheRose

And Microsoft is copying it exactly.

Get off your high horse. Microsoft has been working on this stuff just as long as Apple. They've had smart folders in Outlook since 2003. If anything, Microsoft is copying BeOS or any of a number of other systems that have had such functionality.

[RonnieoftheRose]

Originally Posted by nickm

Get off your high horse. Microsoft has been working on this stuff just as long as Apple. They've had smart folders in Outlook since 2003. If anything, Microsoft is copying BeOS or any of a number of other systems that have had such functionality.

Oh ok I'm on a ****ing high horse because I never used Outlook 2003 and BeOS. There is a proper way of correcting someone, such as:

'Microsoft has been working on this stuff just as long as Apple. They've had smart folders in Outlook since 2003. If anything, Microsoft is copying BeOS or any of a number of other systems that have had such functionality.'

[leperkuhn]

When i worked as a sys admin, I came to love the smart folder. while the outlook interface left a lot to be desired, I really liked smart folders. I've been waiting for a long time for mail to have it.

Not everything microsoft does is done poorly, and they don't hire idiots. It is possible that the biggest software company in the world with the biggest budget may come up with their own ideas, or do something right.

[RonnieoftheRose]

Originally Posted by leperkuhn

Not everything microsoft does is done poorly, and they don't hire idiots. .

Of course they don't. They did very well with Direct X. NT has almost always been very stable. Internet Explorer was for a time the best browser around until the Mozilla project and Konqueror. What they have always been criticised for is a huge amount of bugs that need constant fixing, very poor security, an OS that is a virus writer's dream, poor design ethic and application installers that screw the system up with DLL hell. They are not fixing all of this with Longhorn. The DLLs and installers are still the same. Design is still poor. It's too early to tell if they will finally have an OS as secure as Mac OS X. I doubt it.

[nickm]

Originally Posted by RonnieoftheRose

Oh ok I'm on a ****ing high horse because I never used Outlook 2003 and BeOS.

No, I made that comment because you're trying to make Microsoft out as an inferior copycat with an empty statement for which you offer no evidence. Or do you have evidence that Microsoft is copying Apple "exactly"?

That's not to say that some influence isn't perhaps flowing from Cupertino to Redmond (and vice versa), but lots of computer systems have offered something akin to smart folders under different implementations. Some have been fairly pervasive like BeOS while others have been more limited, but the idea of a saved query is nothing new under the sun.

[ashtoash]

Apple made it confused, If you type in the search box on a finder window, and set different settings (Example I set a serach by EXIF camera model) You can save it as a "Saved Search" which is EXACTLY the same as the "smart folder" option.

Not to meantion it's full of bugs, if you use the the metadata top functions. Try combining multiple search options. and height of image of say "1000" it will return all image sizes.

And YES this in the full retail copy ;-)

[kman42]

One feature they should add to this is a PDF index view similar to the image index view. It nicely returns results for text inside of a PDF, but couldn't they offer the option of showing the thumbnails for all of the PDFs as well? They do it for images and it seems like an obvious thing to do.

kman

[Mithras]

Just a heads-up that I wrote a nifty little script that works just like `ls', except that if you ask it to ls a .savedSearch file, instead of listing the file itself, it lists the results of that saved search.

Genesis was over on Ars, and you can snag the script here:
http://www.freewebs.com/mithrasthepr...otlightls.html

So you can do something like

Code:
[02:32 AM mithras@powerbook: Saved Searches] ls -l NewPDFs.savedSearch 
-rw------- 1 mithras wheel 9002 Apr 21 11:32 /Users/mithras/.Trash/Web Receipts/Untitled.pdf
-rw-r--r-- 1 mithras wheel 1431950 Apr 22 16:16 /Users/mithras/.Trash/philosophical-review.pdf
-rw-r--r-- 1 mithras wheel 225031 Apr 22 12:28 /Users/mithras/Documents/13/alon_liebler_199.pdf
-rw-r--r-- 1 mithras wheel 332477 Apr 22 12:28 /Users/mithras/Documents/13/barkai_leibler.pdf
-rw-r--r-- 1 mithras wheel 350114 Apr 22 12:28 /Users/mithras/Documents/13/odell_2000_nature.pdf

Neat!

[Millennium]

Originally Posted by RonnieoftheRose

You create them using Spotlight. The Finder doesn't move them there. It creates links to all related files in one virtual folder. You can delete the smart folder and your files won't be touched.

You're close, but that's not quite it.

A "smart folder" is not a folder of links. In fact, it's not a folder at all. It's a single file containing a Spotlight query. When you open the folder, the Finder passes the query through to Spotlight, which runs the search and gives the Finder a list of files to show. Essentially, a smart folder is just a shortcut to running a search which you've defined, but it's presented in a way that looks like a folder.

In other words, Smart Folders are not "automatically" updated, because there is nothing to update. The search is run again every time you open a Smart Folder. This can obviously only work well if you have an extremely fast search engine. Originally, Copland was to implement this using Apple's V-Twin engine, but as it turns out, V-Twin wasn't fast enough. Part of the point behind Spotlight and its indexing is that it is fast enough to do this.

[Jasoco]

Smart Folders, Smart Playlists, Smart Albums, Smart Mailboxes are my top reasons for wanting Tiger.

[dru]

Originally Posted by RonnieoftheRose

Oh ok I'm on a ****ing high horse because I never used Outlook 2003 and BeOS. There is a proper way of correcting someone, such as:

'Microsoft has been working on this stuff just as long as Apple. They've had smart folders in Outlook since 2003. If anything, Microsoft is copying BeOS or any of a number of other systems that have had such functionality.'

Fear not, Ronnie. The 1994-95 announcement of COPLAND, the original failed Mac OS 8, had this same sort of "Smart Folder" ability. At first they were dubbed "Viewers" and later they were "Saved Finds" but they worked the same way in that they were automatically updated.

It's been quite a long time but I think OS/2 finally implemented the auto-update part in it's Saved Find folders in 1996. The UI has been tricky since in IBM's design the items in the folder were the actual items so if you deleted it, you deleted the item. BUT, if you deleted the Saved Find folder itself, only that folder went away not the collection of stuff it had found. It was an odd thing and confused users because there really wasn't a clear distinction that you had some kind of viewer or viewport or something with that folder.

Apple's clearly been working a long time on the UI issues and thanks to bringing it first out in iTunes, it should make the transition to the general case much much easier on the end user.

Folks should be aware that Microsoft licensed Apple's intellectual property portfolio when they made that non-voting token investment / settlement. It included much of what we're seeing in Tiger and things in Longhorn like their 'stacks' which most of us Apple followers know as their pile concept from around '92 or something. Microsoft's Explorer design, with those filter views is right out of the IBM/Apple Taligent work which itself was licensed by the Redmond beast.

Yes, Virginia, Microsoft is still feeding off the INNOVATION of their competitors.