[kevs]

What's the deal with Spotlight?

When ever I'm in a crunch it can't find anything.

I'm on the phone with Adobe PHotoshop. We need to find a camera raw plug in -- no go.

But today, man.

I just erased and installed whole system and could not remember where Safari's bookmarks are. I thought they were in preferences. Could not find them. I called apple and then found them in home, library.

But before that did a safari search in Spotlight. No Go, only two safari folders come up (even now)-- and that's it office 2004 themes.

In others words in a real crunch, I'm spending twenty minutes searching around for something, and Spotlight can't find it. still can't. I assume I'm all indexed. I've had system up for a day, and nothing is spinning.

Even now, I type in Safari, and the folder with bookmarks does not come up.

It's just ironic -- "best feature of Tiger" -- is it really any better than search was before? I'm really unimpressed. Speed is nice, but real results not so much.

[Horsepoo!!!]

Originally Posted by kevs

What's the deal with Spotlight?

When ever I'm in a crunch it can't find anything.

I'm on the phone with Adobe PHotoshop. We need to find a camera raw plug in -- no go.

But today, man.

I just erased and installed whole system and could not remember where Safari's bookmarks are. I thought they were in preferences. Could not find them. I called apple and then found them in home, library.

But before that did a safari search in Spotlight. No Go, only two safari folders come up (even now)-- and that's it office 2004 themes.

In others words in a real crunch, I'm spending twenty minutes searching around for something, and Spotlight can't find it. still can't. I assume I'm all indexed. I've had system up for a day, and nothing is spinning.

Even now, I type in Safari, and the folder with bookmarks does not come up.

It's just ironic -- "best feature of Tiger" -- is it really any better than search was before? I'm really unimpressed. Speed is nice, but real results not so much.

I suspect some people are having trouble with the indexing. People have suggested adding the HD to the 'Prevent Spotlight from searching' list and then removing it. I don't know if it works or not since my Spotlight is working perfectly and always has but I suppose you could try that.

[kevs]

Ah, think I found it. If you search with little icon the upper right . It excludes your home folder. Why??? crazy. But if you click long form and click computer it includes it. others comments appreciated.

[Randman]

Set your Spotlight preferences. Learn about Kind: search. For instance, you could do a search just for plug-ins that way.

[Apfhex]

Originally Posted by kevs

Ah, think I found it. If you search with little icon the upper right . It excludes your home folder. Why??? crazy. But if you click long form and click computer it includes it. others comments appreciated.

Erm, no, it doesn't exclude it... are you sure your home folder got indexed? Or is not on the Spotlight Privacy list?

[Horsepoo!!!]

Originally Posted by kevs

Ah, think I found it. If you search with little icon the upper right . It excludes your home folder. Why??? crazy. But if you click long form and click computer it includes it. others comments appreciated.

Does someone else use your computer? By default, Spotlight searches everything and excludes no folder. Someone went in and added the 'Home' folder to the privacy list.

[kevs]

Originally Posted by Apfhex

Erm, no, it doesn't exclude it... are you sure your home folder got indexed? Or is not on the Spotlight Privacy list?

The Safari in Home folder does not come up with the upper right icon. Even Apple tech said so to.

But it does come up of the full window search. What is Privacy list?

No one else uses my computer.

[Apfhex]

I mean in the Spotlight panel in System Preferences. A search for "Safari" in the Spotlight menu for me returns the Safari folder from my ~/Library folder as well as Safari folders in ~/Caches and ~/Speech (a well as Safari.app from my Applications folder, all of my individual bookmarks, and of course all PDFs and other documents containing the word—nice, just what I'd expect ).

Maybe the menu, since it just shows the Top 5 from each category, just isn't displaying the folder. You're saying when you select "Show All" from within the menu, it appears?

[eddiecatflap]

it needs tweaking , roll on 10.4.2

[jasong]

Definitely worth the price of admission for me. I hit the Spotlight icon, typed Safari, clicked on the one of the folders it found named Safari, and boom - there was my bookmark file.

Also, kevs, you may want to spend a moment or two proofreading your posts before hitting the submit button.

[zizban]

Spotlight is interesting but I haven't really found a use for it yet.

[Agent69]

If you prefer the old file name style searching, you should read this. However, be sure to note the warnings if you do it, especially if you use Mail.app as your mail client.

If you want to exclude a specific folder from indexing, in addition to using the privacy tab, you can also create a folder with an extension of .noindex. For example, in my home folder I have a file called Src.noindex, where I compile Unix software that I have downloaded. I did this because I noticed that Spotlight was slowing down my computer as it was trying to index source code and other files created during compilation.

[timmerk]

Correct, Spotlight sucks. 10.4 is a bloated, buggy mess. I am thinking about going back to 10.3 or 10.4 server, where there is no Spotlight or Dashboard ********.

[kevs]

timmerk:
I just did full clean install due to weird permissions issues and other things happening, and one the cheif problems reappeared after couple days: log in items vanishing -- although I've posted about it, and not too many others have heard of it.

[Randman]

To quote graymalking from another thread.

Bah, when Panther was released everyone was whining about how much it sucked and how great Jaguar was. Tiger does things differently than Panther in some respects, it is also the future. There's not going to be a Tiger Lite which is just Panther with Safari 2 and iChat 3. Reading the anti-Tiger posts I think quite a few of the problems only exist between the keyboard and the chair. There's some definite bugs and things to work out but a change in the functionality of implementation of something is not a bug.

[moonmonkey]

Originally Posted by timmerk

10.4 is a bloated, buggy mess.

Are you running this widget?

http://www.apple.com/downloads/dashb...es/mirror.html


That may be the problem.

[maCCer]

Originally Posted by zizban

Spotlight is interesting but I haven't really found a use for it yet.

i think spotlight would be very useful when you have large amount of data in your mac,, AND you are quite busy, can not remember everything, e.g. when and where you have put your files.

cheers

[Millennium]

Originally Posted by maCCer

i think spotlight would be very useful when you have large amount of data in your mac,, AND you are quite busy, can not remember everything, e.g. when and where you have put your files.

That's one thing, yes. However, Spotlight isn't just a search tool; it's also a research tool.

Although there's the occasional rare person who has enough discipline to keep a strict hierarchical file organization and make it work, even this kind of organization has its limitations. A person can only keep track of so many criteria before every file ends up in its own folder, and at that point the whole system goes from disciplined to absurd. In reality, most people only organize based on a small handful of criteria, usually by names, dates, and a vague notion of what the file is used for. Spotlight can be used to uncover other kinds of relationships between files, ones which the user hasn't thought of or decided not to include in their organization. The point of Spotlight is that it cuts across the filesystem's organization.

To be honest, I haven't used Spotlight for much yet, though I've used it once or twice and generally been surprised by the results. I think it's a very good base to start from. It is not yet perfect, of course, but it's an excellent base, and it's given me an idea for something I may have to try implementing (HINT: I'm talking about a very different kind of Dashboard).

[tuqqer]

Originally Posted by eddiecatflap

it needs tweaking , roll on 10.4.2

Now that is the smartest, most succinct thing I've heard about Tiger yet. There's no denying that Tiger needs tweaking and lots of it. Anything else is a apology.

I certainly am not going back to Panther, being the update junkie that I am. But Tiger is no Jack Kennedy (to paraphrase some lost presidential debate a few years back).

[Horsepoo!!!]

Originally Posted by tuqqer

Now that is the smartest, most succinct thing I've heard about Tiger yet. There's no denying that Tiger needs tweaking and lots of it. Anything else is a apology.

I certainly am not going back to Panther, being the update junkie that I am. But Tiger is no Jack Kennedy (to paraphrase some lost presidential debate a few years back).

In case you younglings don't remember, Panther was just as bad when it was first released.

[tuqqer]

Originally Posted by Horsepoo!!!

In case you younglings don't remember, Panther was just as bad when it was first released.

Good point and reminder!