[ntt]

Anyone else frustrated by iPhoto4's lack of Spotlight support?
I can't search my photos by the titles and comments that I have assigned to them.

So, my idea is: after some sleep I'm going to write an applescript that goes over my entire iPhoto library and puts the title and comments into the Spotlight comments for the image file itself. Then spotlight will find my images properly.

There are some obvious flaws with this approach (new photos will require the script to be re-run before their comments are synced).

Anyone else interested in such a script?

[ntt]

I got my automator action completed.

iPhoto4Spotlight1.0.action.zip

It accepts iPhoto objects from a previous Automator action, and copies the Title and Comments from iPhoto into the finder's Spotlight Comments field for each file.
It is very slow working on all 3000 photos I have, but for individual photos it is really usable.

It is obviously not as good as the iPhoto5 integration is. At the moment there is no support for keywords, and it isn't instantaneous... you need to run an automator script before it works. But its a start.

I hope someone appreciates this!

[nbnz]

ntt, that's great! thanks!

[Flash2000]

Couldn't you just select all your iphoto pics, and do a batch change in the comments. Add a space, or maybe the phrase "photos" but have it added to existing comments. This way all the files are changed and reindexed.

[ntt]

iPhoto '04 isn't automatically indexed by spotlight.
So any titles or comments that you apply in iPhoto '04 are ignored completely.
That is why I created this automator action. To place that data in the Spotlight comments, making iPhoto '04 spotlight compatible.

[willed]

ntt, I can't get your script to work for some reason. It came up with an Automator icon and is suffixed ".action" but when I first tried to open it, it claimed it wasn't associated with any particular app, and when I choose to open it with automator nothing happens. Any tips?

[ntt]

willed,

Proper way to use the automator action is to copy it into: ~/Library/Automator/

Then, open Automator and create a workflow that suits you. The one that I have is:

1. Get Selected iPhoto Items
2. Make iPhoto4 Images Spotlightable

You can then save this workflow as a normal workflow, or Save As Plugin for the Script Menu (which you can enable in Applescript Utility).

So with the above workflow, if you have iPhoto open and have some images selected, it will copy the title and comments into the image files for spotlight to pick up.

A different workflow might be:

1. Find iPhoto Items (specify some search criteria)
2. Review Photos (optional, just for fun, so you can see what images will be spotlit)
3. Make iPhoto4 Images Spotlightable

I tried to make it as flexible as possible, so it can be hooked into from anything that sends it iPhoto images.

Does that help?

[PianoMan]

If you have photoshop you can just use that over iphoto and it will make them searchable on spotlight.

[parsec_kadets]

What about adding the album to the comments? For example, I have an album named for my pet bird. As it stands now, when I search I see the folder for the album, and when I click it iPhoto is launched. What I would like to is add the album name to the spotlight comments so the photos show up. Is that possbie with iPhoto 4 and Automator?

[willed]

Thanks ntt. Still though, I think we should send feedback to Apple about this. Having a <1year old program not work as it should with the OS is not on.

[ntt]

parsec_kadets,

I think adding the album name may be possible. The only issue is that photos may be in multiple albums, and it may be quite complicated to fetch a list of every album that each photo is in. Would take several minutes to process a thousand photos.