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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.
Beagle has done this for a while.
Also from tfa As powerful as Spotlight is, it actually offers a somewhat limited set of search options. (then detailing the new, 1996 search engine style AND/OR/NOT operators).
Beagle's also ahead here:I guess sometime's Spotlight's ahead on features & at other times Beagle's ahead.
There are shills on slashdot. Apparently, I'm one of them.
Maybe then someone will create more MAC apps that we can use to build shit we might want to search for later on?
The improvements include searching across multiple networked Macs, parental search snooping
I'm not sure that's an improvement. a "new addition", but not an improvement.
Push Button, Receive Bacon
Funny, every review of a feature of Windows Vista that I read mentioned Apple and OS X. *Every single one.* It was incredible.
Yet this review doesn't mention Microsoft or Vista once, despite the fact that all of the features are available on Vista right now. (Although the "remote searching" feature isn't as complete as 10.5's, and it won't be until Longhorn Server is released.)
If this was a Vista review, there would have probably been no fewer than 5 comparisons to OS X.
I'm still somewhat of a Mac n00b, so perhaps I don't get it right now (using Tiger), but when I type in something in the search field at the top of a Finder window when I'm in a particular folder, why doesn't it just search in that folder instead of using Spotlight to search the entire computer?
Or am I missing something?
...it'd be great if they also indexed your offline media too?
The number of times I have to swap out CDs trying to find an image file or an old piece of code - it drives me nuts! Now with DVD it gets worse, HD-DVD, Blu-ray - forget it, that's a needle in a haystack. How difficult could it be to have the drive index offline media too - a bit like some tape library software or the like? Maybe it could index when you burn? The last time I saw something like this was when I got a Zip drive back in 1997 and some nifty free software came with it. Now, it seems that you can only search your local drive - a bad idea when removable media is the norm.
So, at the risk of sounding like a total banana; why doesn't anyone do this, or am I missing some glaringly obvious checkbox somewhere in OS X/XP/Fedora/Vista?
Yes, that is big ol flamebait title, but back when Spotlight first came out I was one of those foaming at the mouth Mac lunatics modding up every remotely positive Apple comment and down for anything remotely negative. I sat on the edge of my seating with my little old heart going piterpater hitting refresh when things like Spotlight were unveiled.
But after having used it for a long time now after all the hype and the koolaid having worn off for me, Spotlight is easily the worst of the search solutions for all three major platforms. Hidden by the usual Apple good choice of product name and UI polish.
but will it find widgets by 'wdgt' in /Library/Widgets? Will it find files inside .app? I'm unimpressed with spotlight in it's current form, especially the widgets.
The bias is crazy. Windows Search (in Vista) does all of these fantastically well already, but no-one even mentions it.
"Oh boy"
I do a search and bring up the Spotlight results window. The window is some sort of 'special' window that doesn't act like a real window where you can tab back and forth.
Why?
I want to look for something in the current folder. If there happens to be, usually, a folder selected Spotlight will only search in that subfolder. Arrrrrggg!
Why?
I want to look for *.cpp files. It looks like this is possible but a complete pain to do.
Why?
Where are all these amazing search plugins that we were promised when Spotlight was released?
I've used File Buddy exclusively since spotlight became the standard OS X search. I've only used spotlight couple times and I hate it.
Apple Sux. And yes. I am posting it from my mac. This shitty piece of personal computer doesnt have good drivers using which I can view all the *videos* I lay my hands on. I need to transfer files over to my *win2k* machine to do so. Search? What for? There isnt much happening here anyway! Quicktime *grey screened* my mac! Yes - it halted the mac!!!! And I have a paid version of it. Everytime I play many files on it and do a full screen, it crashes. It doesnt have a playlist!!! God, when was it invented? Like in 200 AD? All the "cool stuff" on Apple can be found on windows or other *nix platforms. I dont use their browser either. If I get IE7 on mac, I would use it. For now I had to be content with using Firefox. For the closed piece of crap hardware, in which I can change only the memory, this is too expensive. All idiots who support mac can blow themselves.
Now that Spotlight has been around for a while the parallels to AppleScript are amazing. Both products were announced and massively hyped in comparison to other platforms. If you believed what Apple was saying or implying other platforms were years behind with similar solutions.
Both AppleScript and Spotlight have the usual Apple polish as end user products with the usual Apple poor quality implementation.
New version of program contains features and bug fixes not present in previous version of program.
09 F9 11 02 9D 74 E3 5B D8 41 56 C5 63 56 88 C0 is the magic number.
From the fine article:
I'm supposed to treat my kids like criminals now? No unmonitored phone conversations, mail and all of that? Publisher's profits are more important than my family's privacy and dignity? No thanks, my house is not a jail. I have respect for the people who live here and my visitors.
It's stuff like this that keeps me away from non-free software, regardless of how difficult publishers and non free software companies would like to make my life. I'm not going to trust my life to software that comes with wiretapping as a feature. If Apple lacks respect for my kids, what kind of respect will they have for me? Well, not much considering the restrictions they put into unFairPlay and their OS in general. Apple can keep their pretty laptops and DRM crippled music players to themselves. Make no mistake, this is just one more step in removing your rights, and the future will be worse with non free software.
My wife and my kids get root on their computer. It's theirs, not mine, and what they do with it is their business. No one is downloading music and movies here because it's easier for us to get free stuff at archive.org and netflicks. They are free to share what they want and keep the rest to themselves. Anything more invasive than that, outside evidence of real wrong doing, is for paranoid control freaks.
Respect has to go both ways. If I don't have it for them, they won't have it for me.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
So, will they fix the "alias hole" while they're doing this?
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 am hoping Spotlight will be consistently fast in Leopard, rather than the current situation where sometimes it's instantaneous and other times it takes many seconds to display results.
I've tried getting rid of Quicksilver, since launching apps and finding docs is all I ever use it for; but Spotlight just isn't consistent enough speed-wise for me yet. Quicksilver's searches are reliably fast.
#DeleteChrome
example:
/tmp/already.exists /path/to/symlink /tmp/already.exists /tmp/this.is.a.new.name
/tmp/already.exists would work just fine and peachy when the file was renamed (or moved elsewhere on the disk) as above.
prompt% ln -s
prompt% mv
The symlink is now screwed. An alias set up to point at
Simon.
Physicists get Hadrons!
New configuration of universe differs from previous!
Like, that's why it's NEWS, man.
That, ladies and gentlemen, is the sound of rabid fanboyism.
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!
I don't care about all of that stuff.
All I want is something that will stop command-F from always popping up with the idiotic search "Kind = Any," "Last Opened = Any Date."
How about letting me set a preference for the default search? Or...
How about repeating whatever it is I did on the last search?
(To all those who are going to flame me by saying there is some way of changing it by rewriting some XML code in hidden directory somewhere... oh, go away and edit a Registry, why don't you?)
"How to Do Nothing," kids activities, back in print!
now free and open to all comers. One click GUI menu app install, open source free, open source cost cash brand, and "other", all your choice, including proprietary video drivers, media codecs, and so on. No more dodgy overseas servers and the wink wink nudge nudge 'this is how you can get to play tunes or watch vids or you DVDs" "instructions". all legal and functional, open to all comers to use. If your "distro" doesn't offer it, and insists on the command line or some almost works gui thing they push-their problem now, maybe a case of NIH-ism.
If any user can't figure out "mash the button here, this application gets installed", they don't need a computer, they need an analog TV set.
testing
1. Ability to exclude *any* drive from Spotlight. Right now you cannot exclude external FAT32 drives, which means every time I reboot, "mds" has to chug through 'em Microsoft style.
2. Ability to include non-standard file extensions. All I want to do is include my Perl scripts. But there's no "type" for Perl and I can't make Spotlight treat them as fuckin' text files. Give me a break. Again, relying solely on file extensions is hideously Windowsian.
Fortunately, there's "locate" but mdfind gives you the content search as well.
Like so many Apple products, Spotlight is so close and yet so far.
I am a Windows, but also want to buy a macbook. Should I wait until Leopard comes out? Does Apple give discount for the upgrade to people who buy very close to new releases of OS X?
BTW, for some reason after I read your post for the third time trying to make some sense out of it I suddenly realized that this is the mental image I came away with. That's you, getting ready to do battle with the forces of non-free software =)
"Just because Mac did it first doesn't mean we are ripping them off." "Windows, second place in innovation. First place in market penitration!"
OS X 10.5 is still very much a work in progress. I'd be surprised to see it before July or August, and closer to the end of the year, or at Macworld in January, is entirely plausible. Frankly, that's fine with me. I'd rather Apple take the time to finish the operating system than do the usual "set a date and release it whether its done or not" approach.
Spotlight has lots of room for improvement. It is often a frustrating step backwards from the older Mac OS search ability, despite the added features of being able to search more metadata.
I'm really looking forward to the integrated backup features -- assuming it works. There are a whole lot of rough spots in the Finder and interface in general that really need to be rethought and rebuilt (several bad ideas, aka features, that seem to have infected the project from the NeXT folks, like broken windowing behavior). I'd gladly wait another year for the OS if Apple took the time to fix all the little irritations and made sure the new features behave as expected. And yes, I have alerted Apple to the obnoxious little issues as I encounter them.
No man, no. While I agree that the more like quicksilver spotlight is the better, it SURE isn't the other way around!
Quicksilver is a freaking godsend and is much faster because the point isn't searching all of your computer! it makes some intelligent guesses (applications folder, home folder, desktop, etc) as a minimal starting set, but then it has you add other places manually. Also, it only reindexes every ten minutes or so..
Quicksilver rocks because it was designed to do what it does WELL. Spotlight does FS-wide search well.
The two should not be confused for each other, i cannot imagine why you would want one to do the job of both.
CS majors know the time/space tradeoff, but they never get taught the 3rd, crucial, tradeoff of the set: comprehension!
You tell me:
Dude! Don't use the feature if you don't want to.
Wiretapping is not a feature you can really turn on or off.
You should not trust people who conspire with you to violate others. Reading through your kid's stuff is a violation of their trust. The people who gave you this tool don't have any respect for your kids or you. They are likely to read through your stuff without waring too.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
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.
Wow, that way I'd not only get a system I can't trust because it has a wiretap "feature" I'd also put M$ blinders on my kids. Do parental controls do like Steve and "brainwashed" them from iPod to Zune?
I've got my kids brainwashed: You don't use Google, and you don't use an iPod.
Like I want that man controlling anything that has anything to do with my kids.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
I used to use an app on System 7 that would recursively index a disc and create a parallel alias tree in a folder on your desktop. You could navigate the folder and if you accessed a file the Finder would ask you to install the proper disc. This was because it stored the volumeid number in the alias and the finder kept a mapping of volume names and volume ids for later use.
Something like this probably exists on macos today or you could do a shell script to recreate it. I'm not sure how to accomplish that unique volumeid/volumename on linux.
My God, it's Full of Source!
OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
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.
Can I PLEASE get spotlight to have the option to display any of the columns available in the Finder list view, and PLEASE let me sort by those columns? Spotlight is a pain in the ass to use until these capabilities are back from the 10.3 days. I just want to see the file size without having to open every search result.
-- As soon as I have an interesting sig, you'll be among the first to know!
just to install something?"
Just about anyone, I imagine. I'm using a Mac:
circe:/Users/me root# softwareUpdate -r -i; shutdown -r now
Do you insane zealots realize that was a fucking joke at all? Do you? Or are you just intentionally dense?
"Like I want that man controlling anything that has anything to do with my kids."
By the tone of your posts, it looks like you have this one running the show. To the detriment of your children.
Think about it this way, if you had to explain to someone to "go to website, navigate through the page (which may change), find correct exe, install/configure (yes, even windows needs configuring from time to time)." vs go to the terminal, type "sudo apt-get install ..." or better yet, use a search in synaptec, which one sounds easier?
Terminal-phobia is one of my pet peeves though.
Am I open minded towards open source, or closed minded towards closed source?
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Speaking of the middle mouse button, is there any (easy) way in Linux, particularly either under KDE or XFE, to make the middle mouse button work like (ohgodIcantbelieveImsayingthis) Windows'? As in, acting like a scroll-with-pointer button? For the unfamiliar, at least on my work machine, if you press the middle button, the cursor changes into this two-arrows-inside-a-circle icon, which causes the window to scroll if you then move it up or down. It scrolls faster if you move it further, as you would expect, and stops scrolling instantly on release of the buttom.
I've gotten a bit addicted to this feature, and frankly I think it's the handiest thing I've used since the addition of the scroll wheel to the mouse a few years back. It's absolutely terrific for zipping through lengthy documents, and it's a lot better than PageDNing (even on 5-button mice where you can do that without moving to the keyboard).
I've never used a system that had middle click paste (or, if I have, I haven't used it), but the middle-click-scroll feature is pretty handy. I doubt it will appear in Mac OS X anytime soon -- it was hard enough to get Apple to make mice with two buttons, I'm not holding my breath on three, and I'm definitely not holding my breath on a feature that might make people think that they were admitting that their Mighty Mouse Balls weren't the hottest idea in the world -- but it'd be nice to get the option on Linux.
"Ladies and gentlemen, my killbot features Lotus Notes and a machine gun. It is the finest available."
Ah, yes, it's once again time for Apple's yearly "milking of the consumers", when they their users to pay for bug fixes (which, had it been written properly, would not be necessary), security fixes (ditto, as MOAB proved), and software of dubious value at best.
At least with Windows, you buy it and you're done. They aren't renting me an operating system. Service Packs and their auto-update service is free, and it will ALWAYS be free so long as Microsoft is supporting that OS. Heck, you can still auto-update Windows 98, although no new updates will be released.
Talk about a tax. Funny how Slashdot pules about the "MS Tax", but never really discusses the "Apple Tax with yearly maintenance fees".
Apple: lifetime holder of Slashdot's "Prefered Monopoly Status"
So why does it need the administrator password? After all, I just want to use an application on my account, right?
Last time I checked, it was pretty difficult to install something from a CD, for instance (add it to "sources.list", or something as stupid as that). It isn't until people realize Linux is extremely counter-intuitive that it can get better.
A rude AC taunts:
Tell your kids you were only respecting their privacy after they are anally raped by a pedophile, you utter dumb fuck.
The funny thing is, that's exactly the kind of fear M$ is selling the service on. They are trying to ride the "shark attack" media blitz of fear. Well, it would be funny if it were not so counter productive.
Of course, it's total bullshit. The actual chance of anyone being molested by a computer creep is vanishingly small.
When you treat your kids like criminals you do real harm to their trust in you and their own dignity. Those are exactly the things they need in abundance if they ever are approached by a pervert. If they don't trust you, they can't get help. If they have low self esteem, they will put up with abuse and think it's normal.
That register article is so good, I think I'll journal it up and see if I can't work it into another front page article you M$ paid turds hate, insightful commentary that shows M$ and non free crap in it's correct light.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
...and that's how the Leopard got its Spotlight.
Quicksilver is *that* good. Anyone who uses Spotlight to launch apps hasn't tried, or doesn't fully understand, Quicksilver. Just like Coverflow, virtue desktops et al, Apple should buy them and incorporate it into Leopard. Either that, or they'll pull a Konfabulator on them and incorporate its functionality into their own code.
Ha, if this were true I'd never leave the house!
No, actually. Apple "fanboys" don't think that. You must be thinking of one specific Apple fanboy, Artie MacStrawman.
Aliases are more powerful than symlinks, and for a single-user system that's probably enough, but it would be nice if they'd consider multi-user security a bit more while they're integrating these features into an existing system.
... but you can tell if there's a "stealth" hard link pointing to a path element, by the link count. And, yes, checking the link counts for all directories back to the root is something that properly designed software that depends on traverse checking does.
However, if MS ever left a security hole this big, the industry would have a field day with it.
NT doesn't do traverse checking by default, you have to turn it on (and then see how much Windows-95-quality software breaks).
The fact is OSX is still more secure as there are less users and is therefore much less of a target.
OSX has four main areas where its security is better than Windows:
* Web browsers are not integrated with the desktop.
* Daemons (services) are bound to interfaces by default, so firewalls are optional.
* It uses a uniform system call interface, so there are fewer opportunities for "crashme" type attacks.
* Applications from UNIX do not require a low security level to run.
What the hell is a Media Access Control Man?
Desktop Manager is a fantastic tool that's available now.
HAHAHA! So Microsoft and Apple and the Mozilla Foundation (and tons of other companies, I guess) are likely to be reading through my stuff right now because they create products which allow people to snoop on what content other people consume? You're cracking me up.
Interestingly enough, Apple also produces software with features that specifically allow you to protect yourself from snooping (Safari's private surfing feature comes to mind). What does that make them?
Maybe they simply add features to their apps which their customers actually need and demand? Some parents actually want to know what their kids are doing - not that I personally think that this is a good idea. It's probably also useful in settings like schools.
Is this some kind of joke I'm not getting?
Besides "command line" apt-get, and Synaptic, you can also download .deb files and double click em just like you do with Windows .exe files and if you have all the right required libraries, it will install using an installer. Synaptic is easier though, because it's connected to the repository and all the dependencies are current to that repository.
Too complicated for you ? Have your grandma explain it.. I'm done.
waiting for ad.doubleclick.net
I remember installing Magellan on my ALR 286 with a 40 meg HD around 1987-1988. I don't remember the exact feature set but after indexing the drive I could do pretty much everything I am able to do with the modern OS searches like Spotlight.
I'm glad that Spotlight is getting smarter but I think it's silly that these things were not part of the original release.
You don't always need to break new ground. Sometimes you just need to make sure you at least cover the ground already handled by the original innovators.
twitter, I think you're confused. I love how you got modded up though. I guess that "M$" thing is still pure magic with the mods. You realize this is an article about a feature of an Apple product, correct? What "M$" service are you talking about?
Of course, it's total bullshit.
That link is 404'ed. I wonder why?
When you treat your kids like criminals
Please, you've proved beyond any reasonable doubt that you are not fit to be a parent, or at least that you shouldn't let kids use computers under your supervision (or lack thereof) Give it up.
That register article is so good, I think I'll journal it up
I doubt it will, considering it's 404 and your "write up" has your usual grammar and spelling mistakes, not to mention the hysterical "OMFG M$ IS TEH EV1LZ" tone.
you M$ paid turds hate
Yes twitter, anyone who disagrees with you is on Microsoft's payroll.
insightful commentary
Just like your posts!
Wow; I'd never noticed that before. Guess that's another point for Firefox over Safari...
It'd be nice to get that system-wide.
"Ladies and gentlemen, my killbot features Lotus Notes and a machine gun. It is the finest available."
google has a cache. I'll fix that right away. You trolls are useful after all.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
*THIS* is *STILL* what the desktop search wars are about? Whether or not you can search by the basic attributes of a file using wildcards and conveniently launch it afterwards?
.info files were displayed as icons, but other than that what you did with a file did NOT depend on the last three (or even... get this... *four*) characters of its name.
For fsck()'s sake someone give me the damn code for a few days. LMAO people are patenting this shit and having wars over it, and *still* noone (not Mac, not MS, not Linux) has a relational FS, 'like X' searching, result grouping, file-types not determined by extension... C'mon the Amiga had that one in 1989!!! Everybody knew it was a hack that
ROFL, I wonder how many millions have been spent presenting the same search technology from pre 1990 in a different way in the last 18 years? Gotta get a job doing that. If you can't write it in a single line of SQL then it ain't a search function worth having, right? My sides hurt, seriously.
What really surprises me is forum searching. There are so many open source bulletin boards in use, but not one of them has an even remotely helpful search function, despite their widespread use and (supposedly) active development cycles. The human race is doomed to be crushed under the weight of its own information, and all because it's about whether your search engine has a dog or a butterfly on it that talks to you, rather than ACTUALLY MAKING SEARCH TECHNOLOGIES. Actually slashdot tagging is one of the best 'innovations' I've seen lately. Haven't used it but it certainly seems to work from the chump end.
This one will keep me grinning for days. Stupid humans!
It's OK Bender, there's no such thing as 2.
"Where did Apple go yesterday?"
USE HOT GRITS WITH STATUE OF NATALIE PORTMAN (NAKED AND PETRIFIED)
I just hope that Apple make Spotlight actually work. Ever since it replaced Mail's built-in search I haven't been able to find anything. Admittedly I'm probably a special case, as my mail archive stretches back over 14 years. Still, when I type something into the search field I have to wait minutes for anything to happen, and then the results are both numerous and irrelevant. I get better and faster results with "grep".
I'm a big fan of the underlying technology in Spotlight -- observing writes and incrementally maintaining a database is a great idea -- but the usability is terrible.
I'm not interested in any of these new "features". I just want old-style Mac usability.