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Spotlight Improvements In Leopard
Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard is set to feature several new enhancements to Spotlight, Apple's desktop search, and ComputerWorld outlines them. The improvements include searching across multiple networked Macs, parental search snooping, server Spotlight indexing, boolean search, better application launching (sorely needed), and quick-look previews.
Yes, this:
Finder sucks ass.
That's pretty much all there is to it to answer your question. Most things on OS X are great, but Finder is a huge, festering piece of crap that doesn't handle network drives worth crap, doesn't handle large folders worth crap, and doesn't have as many features as Finder in OS 9 did. And 5 releases later, Apple still hasn't fixed it.
It's infuriating.
Comment of the year
That's because the media has woken up and taken Microsoft, supposedly the #1 software company in the world, to task for not being able to update its aging Win32 codebase when their most well-known competitor has been cranking out successful updates every 2-3 years and are still years ahead.
Because for Mac users, it's a case of "been there, done that." The majority of Vista is an indisputable clone of OS X features that Mac users have taken for granted for years, from hardware-accelerated desktop compositing to vector-based graphics APIs to non-admin user accounts to shiny two-tone plastic highlights and translucencies. And on and on.
Christ, even the filesystem layout was shamelessly cloned from OS X.
"Sufferin' succotash."
Currently, I hardly use Spotlight on my iBook G4 800 MHz. The application launcher capability is what I need most, and I find Launchbar to be far faster than Spotlight for this. Launchbar even does a decent job for many of the searches I need, at the same speed as application launching, but Spotlight search for the same can take very long.
Can't Apple employ the technology used in Launchbar or Quicksilver along with their existing technology to make the searches faster? I know Spotlight is lower because it has to index far more data as it searches inside files. However, most searches perhaps don't need the data that is inside files, but merely the same metadata that is indexed by Launchbar/QS. So, why not have a two-step search: first search the data that is not inside the file and give results as quick as Launchbar/QS, then search inside the files to give other search results?
I understand this may be a non-issue for the latest Intel Macs, and so, Apple may not bother.
I'm supposed to treat my kids like criminals now?
No, the easier option is to make the switch to Vista now.
Then you could search your kids stuff if you wanted, but if you didn't want to treat them like a 'criminal' it is easier to just use the parental controls so you know they aren't into crap an 8 year old shouldn't get into even accidentally.
BTW, Parenting is a bit like treating your children like criminals, it is called caring for them and actually trying to protect them from perverts. (Your real name isn't Bill O'Reilly is it?)
These claims that Linux features are creeping into OS X is bogus;
Sensible people realise that all the major Operating Systems copy both from each other and (more commonly) research Operating Systems.
People who see feature X is linux, then see it in OS X & Windows may incorrectly come to the conclusion that OS X & Windows are copying linux.
It's far more likely however that all three operating systems copied feature X from $weird_academic_researh_OS.
There are shills on slashdot. Apparently, I'm one of them.
Dude! Don't use the feature if you don't want to. And what's with the irrational music player comment ? If you don't buy songs from the iTunes Music store, you will never encounter DRMed music on you iPod. The iPod will happily ply your pirated mp3s. Or do what I do, just buy CDs and copy the music onto you iPod. iTunes will do it all for you...just put the pretty CD in the slot.
and I'm not convinced anything mentioned in the article is going to make the different and make me like Spotlight.
The Spotlight UI is what needs the major overhaul - it's freaking ANNOYING and inconsistent with the Finder. If you do a spotlight search from the menu bar, items in the drop down list cannot be dragged and dropped or have their path shown. You have to go 'Show All' if you want to actually USE that image you found.
If you do go to the 'Show All' window (which doesn't appear in CMD-Tab) then you have to click the stupid huge "I" to get the path - unlike in the Finder version where it appears at the bottom of the window.
I hate the Finder search - it is so slow that even if you just want to search that directory, it feels as though it is searching the entire computer and just filtering the results. It also recursively searches without any decent feedback as to where the files it finds actually ARE (and you can't turn it off). And the worst part is - if you trash something IT STAYS IN THE SEARCH RESULTS. That really fucks me off.
It's the small details that make using Spotlight (and spotlight-as-part-of-the-finder) absolute Hell. They have better fix that sort of stuff (and the whole freaking finder....) before stupid network searching!
apt-get isn't the recommended way to install applications in Ubuntu. Synaptic, a nice GUI front end to parts of the apt suite, is. No need to type anything except for an administrator password.
MOD UP. if only i had mod points. the post you replied to was one of the most unintentionally funny posts ive seen on slahdot. i though it was like the linux quake 4 install troll that tells you to recompile the kernel until i looked at the string and saw it was a legit command to do the task described.
People who claim linux is ready for the desktop need to figure out how many grandmas want to type "sudo apt-get install beagle python-beagle" in a fricking terminal window to get search working.
The war with islam is a war on the beast
The war on terror is a war for peace
Yes, and we've had this thing called "improvement" since then.
How in the hell you got modded insightful is beyond me.
Look, for windows:
1. Search the internet for a program that does what you want.
2. Read some reviews and see if its a legit program, and not some crappy ad-ware/botware.
3. do you want to pay for this program? A decision must by made here.
4. Download the program
5. Run spyware and antivirus software on it
6. Click install.exe
7. accept EULA
8. Choose if you are installing this for all users or your self
8. hope and pray that it doesn't affect other programs or change extensions
9. Use it, and if you dont like it:
9b. uninstall it and hope and pray you dont have to clean up after it.
However with Linux, if you know the package you want you could do a command line apt-get install foo
OR
You can open your package manager (synaptic in my case) and do a search for "search" and read the desriptions of the package, such as beagle, and click on it to install. DONE. Removal is just as easy.
Thats why windows is a pain in the ass, and Linux is just easy.
So dont spread FUD. The average linux user gets used to speeding things up, and learns a few shortcuts, like the command line if they are so inclined.
Now, it is a bit unfair to rebut the parent poster by saying that a feature is in an unreleased development trunk.
What is it with you people?
Do you really need to look down on other OS'es all the time? Can't you just be happy with what you have?
Now, as many here have already said, apt-get is just one way, and there's at least two good click'n'drool programs for people with a deathly fear for terminals.
Let me take an example for windows on this. How do you get the IP address? If you're telling some other techie, you'd probably just say "start -> run -> cmd -> ipconfig" - now, does that prove that windows isn't ready for the general public? Would you react if someone answered you with "hah, windows is clearly not ready for normal people"? The other alternative is
"start -> control panel -> classic -> network connections -> double click on the right one -> Support".
But it is twice as long, and more hassle for most techies than just doing it via the command line.
Now, read that again. Think WHERE the poster you replied to posted. Does your grandma read slashdot? Not likely. I expect most people here to be able to copy/paste some text into a terminal, maybe the one you replied to expected that too?
What's worse, your post actually got modded +5 Insightful of all things. I just get the feeling that there are a lot of people needing something to look down on..
It's The Golden Rule: "He who has the gold makes the rules."
"OSX's vector based graphics API is EQUIVALENT to GDI+ that has been available in Windows since 2001. Go look this up, please."
.NET developer sites have thus been suggesting ways to avoid using it, including going through the DirectX 9 layer, which offers many of the same features without the performance penalty, but isn't as easy to use.
.NET Windows Forms used GDI+, and MS received many, many complaints about their slow drawing compared with (for example) VB6 forms. Despite several years of promises that this would be fixed, they eventually simply deprecated Windows Forms, thus leaving all the people who they initially told to "keep using Windows forms because the performance issues will be resolved by an update in the near future" with a slow mess that will probably need converting to their very different XAML-based system at some point.
And I suggest you go and look up the 110,000 pages Google gave me when I entered "GDI+ slow", because developers have been complaining about this since it was introduced (Microsoft admit that the most commonly asked question about GDI+ is "Why is it so slow?)". Yes, it has lots of nice features that aren't in standard GDI such as anti-aliased drawing and alpha blending, but the drivers don't use a graphics card's accelerator features, and although Microsoft promised that this would change, nearly six years later we're still waiting (it also has a nasty memory leak which still AFAIK hasn't been fixed yet).
NB:
I'm not going to change your sheets again, Mr. Hastings.
The thing to keep in mind here is that for most users of Mac OS X (and Apple customers in general), "more features" does not equal "better" - see also: iPhone, iPod.
If you're one of those people who like tons of features, being able to replace system-level functions, tons of settings (possibly in arcane text files), the Mac may not be the best OS for you.
Apple's claim to fame is not "we have the most features," it's "we have the features you need, and we make them usable."
No, actually. Apple "fanboys" don't think that. You must be thinking of one specific Apple fanboy, Artie MacStrawman.