[X-Unix]from tcsh to bash

[Dan Frakes]

On Wed, 18 May 2005 18:34:08 -0700, John Baltutis <baltwo at san.rr.com> wrote:
> Here's my take on Spotlight, after spending seven months working with it
> and echoes many beta-tester's comments:
>
> Most people seldom search for content-that's why most never indexed their
> drives or used Sherlock extensively in the earlier OS versions. They search
> by or for the subject, which is usually contained in the name-just like
> they do when seeking something in a library.

I'd argue that the reason people mainly search by name is that it's all
they've ever really had. Sure, there was "find by content" in previous
versions of the Mac OS, but it required that you index your drive (or at
least some files), which most people had no idea how to do. Plus, even when
you did index files, the feature often didn't work very well. In other
words, it was a feature people either didn't know about, didn't know how to
use, or had trouble getting to work right. Spotlight "fixes" these issues by
making content searches a default option and by indexing content
automatically.

People didn't do Web searches much when search engines first appeared,
either. But once people realized the power behind a search engine, these
sites became the most popular on the Web. My prediction is that now that
people are seeing content and metadata searches hyped by Apple and
Microsoft, and are being "forced" to to use them (with Spotlight, by
default, including content in searches), content searches are going to
become more familiar to users. In other words, give "content searches" some
time -- I think we'll find that in a couple years, people won't know how
they used a computer without them.


> When the user decides to do a content search, then, and only then, should
> Spotlight update that index-otherwise Spotlight can continue to update
> everything, except content, as it currently does. If this setup was
> implemented, search performance and indexing slowdowns would vanish.

And the convenience of on-the-fly content searching would disappear, as
well. The whole point of automatic indexing is that it makes a content
search happen instantaneously (or nearly so).

You're advocating throwing the baby out with the bathwater. I would argue
that the solution here isn't to get rid of live indexing; it's to improve
live indexing.


> Finally, searches shouldn't begin until you've selected it (clicking on the
> go button or the return/enter key ) and there should be an option to turn
> "searching on letters as one types" off. This business of starting when you
> start typing is, IMHO, maddening and a performance zapper.

I agree completely that it should be an option -- it bugs the heck out of me
that if I misspell my search, I have to wait for the "live filter search" to
pause for a second and then start over with the correct spelling.