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iGrouch · Dec 22, 2007, 05:13 AM

Hi

Below is a feedback that I have sent to Apple regarding my user experience with Leopard and how things have changed, with the disappointing loss of features and functionality that were present in Tiger. I place this oversight, on Apple's part, on the same level of the disappearance of the hierarchical menus on folder in the Dock. For me it is worse as I never actually used folders in the Dock this way (I do understand the frustrations of those that do though).

Read on.

I am repeating this feedback because I find it unbelievable what has happened to Spotlight Finder searches and Smart Folders in the transition to Leopard.

Spotlight searches have improved with added functionality but when it was introduced in Tiger the most exciting and visually usable feature of it was the separation of files into different file type categories in the Finder. I believe this was referred to as the search view and it used blue lines as separators. There was even a search view icon in the tool bar, where the column view usually is, to activate it and this was the default view when using the Finder to search and with smart folders.

This was very useful when working on a project. If I had a history of art project with images for a Picasso, Slavador Dali and Matisse these would be grouped together in a smart folder search and I could jump directly to a slideshow to view them. Now al I get is a jumble of files, images and text documents all together. Yes you can group them by kind but there are a lot more steps involved as there dose not seem to be a default view that sticks in this area: It is a moveable feast.

In any event the older search view was far superior, far more user friendly, and better to look at. The loss of this functionality is a big disappointment in Leopard and I am really surprised that this is not noticed by Apple

The other aspect of Spotlight/Finder/Smart Folder searches which is regressive are the location options at the top of the search windows, below the tool bar. The Options are This Mac or the current folder from which the search is initiated. If you decide that you should have applied the search on the Home folder you get backed out of the search when you you click the Home icon in the Finder sidebar. You then need to type the search word again in the search field and then change the location from This Mac to your user name.

In Tiger there were up to five location options that you could jump to within the search: Server, Computer, Home, the folder location from which you started the search and Others. This allowed searches to take place with far less steps.
The usefulness of the criteria Contents and File Name I would place as a far lower priority.

I hope that Apple can take into account that these criticisms highlight serious flaws in the design and ease of use of Leopard.

What do you think?

rem · Dec 22, 2007, 09:39 AM

I think its Apple philosophy to replace old features with new ones rather than to keep appending new features, which can have a bad side effect of generating clutter, so they made some conscientious trade-offs. This can be frustrating at times, but in general I find that Apple makes good choices. That said, the column view button seems useless in search results, maybe it would be a nice enhancement to make it a usable button with the Tiger style file type view. Personally I did not miss anything from Tiger Spotlight and can live with an extra click to sort by filetype. Also, I find it intuitive to select a folder in the sidebar to get out of search results.

iGrouch · Dec 22, 2007, 03:00 PM

Ok fair enough I see your point about replacing outmoded features that can be done much better in a completely new way.

The only thing is though, Spotlight with search view in the Finder was new in Tiger (just one OS X version back) and for me it was this search view with files grouped by categories of type that was the most attractive feature of Spotlight.

There has been already a clammer of criticism that the behavior of docked folders has changed from the hierarchical list view to the new stacks. The hierarchical list view dates back to the first OS X. From leaks online we can see that Apple has seen sense and will return the older docked folder feature in 10.5.2 so why not the great search view as well which is only one OS version old?

Does anyone else like the search view?

By the way having both the stacks and the hierarchical setup is the best of both worlds. Now all Apple has to do is return the ability to drill through folders in stacks to get to items in folders nested deep down from the top level of the stack. This was in some of the earlier developer builds of Leopard.

See here at the beginning of this movie:

Apple Mania

This stack navigation feature is reminiscent of of the popup folder that you could use in Mac OS 9 though visually even better. I used the popup folders during my brief encounter with OS 9 just before OS X came out. OS X did not have anything like them except, oh yes, hierarchical lists on folders in the Dock. So I guess the GUI in this sense is kind of going around in circles. Not that there is anything wrong with this. All the methods of navigating through folders have their merit and having access to all these methods would be welcome.

0157988944 · Dec 22, 2007, 03:13 PM

I remember someone saying you could search system files now, but there is absolutely no visible or easy way to do this. Care to enlighten me?

TETENAL · Dec 22, 2007, 03:42 PM

analogika · Dec 22, 2007, 05:18 PM

What TETENAL is possibly trying to say, but failing miserably, is that in order to actually get "System files" to show up in the list of eligible criteria, you must FIRST select "Other..." and then check the additional criteria you wish to show up on the search criteria pop-up list.

Perhaps he's forgotten that.

Hal Itosis · Dec 24, 2007, 06:55 PM

Note that "System files" now seems to mean any item in *any* Library folder.
Without that attribute, even stuff in the user's own ~/Library will not show up.

TETENAL · Dec 24, 2007, 07:05 PM

Not true. Mails for example definitely show up without that qualifier. So do Safari bookmarks and history, iCal events and Address Book cards.

Hal Itosis · 07:46 PM

Originally Posted by TETENAL

Not true. Mails for example definitely show up without that qualifier. So do Safari bookmarks and history, iCal events and Address Book cards.

Okay fine, you found a few exceptions.

But doesn't that merely *add* to the confusion?

Those items are special perhaps, by having their own Spotlight importers (or whatever).

Users searching their entire Home folder for all files belonging to some [3rd-party] app
won't find anything in the Application Support or Preferences folder, unless the "System
files" attribute is included. That wasn't the case with Tiger, was it?

Anyway, your post serves well to point out some of the inconsistency in Leopard... and
not so much any significant "untruth" in my post.

Thanks!

--EDIT--
Even with something like "itunes.eq" it works funny.
From my Home, filename search can't find it. Move
down to ~/Library and look again. Bang... finds it.
[That's *without* the "System files" inclusion.]

TETENAL · Dec 24, 2007, 08:14 PM

Originally Posted by Hal Itosis

That wasn't the case with Tiger, was it?

I don't remember Tiger finding those files.

A search like "Today" would yield dozens of garbage results with files and folders that consist of just numbers and random characters. That's not a useful search result.

The "exceptions" I found is user documented data. That's what the user is most commonly interested in. If he wants to find cache and temp files and stuff that only programs and the system can make sense of, then this has to be specified explicitly. That is indeed confusing, but less so than having search results littered with dozens of useless cache files.

Chuckit · Dec 24, 2007, 10:10 PM

Strange, I just typed "iTunes.eq" and "mail.plist" into both my Finder search box and the Spotlight menu and had no trouble finding them either way. Anyone else care to try and see if I'm special?

TETENAL · Dec 25, 2007, 10:26 AM

You are special. Spotlight does not show these in the results. Unless you are either specifically searching the Preferences folder or you are including system files.

Chuckit · Dec 25, 2007, 12:12 PM

The "system files" option only seems to affect the system library for me, not the user library. I wonder why that would be.

forumhound · Dec 25, 2007, 12:15 PM

i am just a noob starting in osx 10.4.10 and coming from a windows XP search i though spotlight was FANTASTIC the way it was, but now in leopard i find it confusing and slow. Once an hour it just stops as time machine does it thing....and it's always at the time i want to find something...karma i guess. ps. I can't find iTunes.eq at all!

TETENAL · Dec 25, 2007, 12:18 PM

Kind of cool that Spotlight finds this thread, when you search for "mail.plist".

Hal Itosis · Dec 26, 2007, 01:22 AM

Originally Posted by Chuckit

Strange, I just typed "iTunes.eq" and "mail.plist" into both my Finder search box and the Spotlight menu and had no trouble finding them either way. Anyone else care to try and see if I'm special?

Which folder did you search "from"?
As I mentioned, when I started in ~/Library it worked,
When I started from Home (~/), it didn't.

--

I think there's a possibility 10.5.2 will change these facts,
but I could be wrong.