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really lovin' that spotlight!

MUCKYFINGERS

MUCKYFINGERS

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
okay so for the past 6 months or so since i've used my mac i've never really touched spotlight but i've been using it more and more and it's so convienent! i like not having to pry through all my folders for apps/documents, it's so ingeniuous yet very simple at the same time and i can't figure out why it wasn't so esay to use/as publicized in xp as in os x (well xp doesnt have spotlight i know but i mean i thought the search function in xp was similar to spotlight in os x).

anyone else use spotlight all the time?
 
I had to actively work on using it when I first got Tiger but it's natural now, which is very cool.

I have an equivalent on XP called MSN Search or something and it's okay but it's not nearly as snappy and I don't like the way it displays the files as much. It seems less intuitive. 🙁
 
I go through phases of spotlighting. When I initially got Tiger, I used it quite a bit - it was a bit of a novelty I guess. Now I don't use it all that often, except for quickly finding uni documents and the like.
 
I didn't think I used Spotlight that much. However, this weekend I went home from college to my G3 running Panther. Sheesh, I realized just how much I use it. cmd-space doesn't do much for ya in Panther 🙄
 
i thinik if you can type faster than you can navigate and use your mouse than spotlight is very very useful but for noobs or people who dont type as speedily i think the good ole' mouse and finder does the trick.
 
I love it. I have hundreds of scientific journal articles in pdf form on my computer for use when writing reports and assignments. With spotlight I can search for exact phrases within the pdf files and have the displayed within an instant. So much easier than having to go through each one with a fine toothcomb to get the information.

Absolutely brilliant feature of 10.4 and something I really couldn't live without now.
 
I never realised how much I love and use spotlight until I used a mac without it! I found myself irritated at not being able to instantly find something.
 
Chundles said:
I love it. I have hundreds of scientific journal articles in pdf form on my computer for use when writing reports and assignments. With spotlight I can search for exact phrases within the pdf files and have the displayed within an instant. So much easier than having to go through each one with a fine toothcomb to get the information.

Absolutely brilliant feature of 10.4 and something I really couldn't live without now.
Click to expand...

OMG, I had no idea I could search for text in pdf's! I use Spotlight often, but this never occurred to me! What a n00b I am!!! 😛
 
Spoltlight, you rock!

annk said:
OMG, I had no idea I could search for text in pdf's! I use Spotlight often, but this never occurred to me! What a n00b I am!!! 😛
Click to expand...

I bought Tiger having used Panther with my Dual G5. I bought an external FW HDD and installed Panther - and noticed straight away how much I misses the Spotlight function.

I think that (and the H.264 iChat AV) is the only thing I couldn't live without in Tiger.
 
I use Spotlight only when I lost something, or dont know there the exact file is located, but this happens very rarely.

However I love this feature!
 
i use spotlight all the time, its so much more useful that any seach application. it just keeps out of your way when you dont need it.

S
 
Spotlight is an amazing feature. When I lose something, I can find it in 2 seconds. When i'm feeling lazy, I just type what I want into spotlight and it finds it for me. I also use it when quicksilver crashes.... to relaunch quicksilver. 😀
 
I use quicksilver for everything.

The only time I use spotlight is to reopen quicksilver when it crashes.

🙄
 
I probably use Spotlight everyday, mainly for launching apps that I don't want in my Dock (i.e. BitTorrent, Photo Booth, and Disk Utility). I love it. 😀
 
leapard spotlight

i would love to use spotlight all the time but Apple was a bit half baked i think- their patent applications show show features of Spotlight that didn't make it but would make it soooo much better
New Spotlight User Interface
Hierarchical Nested “Smart Folders”
(More) Human Readable Search Queries
better metadata creation- OCR, voice recognition, analysis of images etc

way too much info on the patent applications from hrmpf.com

102309820_66e64e2a44_o.gif
 
i use it all the time to open applications

cmd - space

type it in

cmd - return to open the top hit





sooooooooo much quicker than opening finder and i dont need to move my hands from the keyboard!
 
Well. it`s happened for more than a few ocassions now.
Needed my car keys and the first reaction was to look in the top right corner to type car keys. But then I came back to senses and realized that I`ll have to get up and look for the keys by myself. Why is there no spotlight in real LIFE. Couldnt find my drivers license last week. And my fingers were urging me to do a cmd+space and type License.
Dont think I need to say anything else.
 
I use spotlight more than I thought I would when it was first introduced. It makes finding my cartoon files a snap as well as info stored deep in areas that I somehow forget 🙄 My GF loves using it to find her class lesson plans (two years worth) either to use as a reference or modify all from a key stroke 😀
 
I wish spotlight came with a feature that would give you results in google-like fashion for words spelled wrong or vague.

This is how it would work: type in your word, and spotlight opens as usual with results (or no results) then in a tab at the top of the window you could click on it to find a window open saying did you mean to search for____ and give you results.
 
I think the search results need to be returned in a different order. I'm often frustrated when I type in the exact name of a file that I'm looking for... and it returns results that have the same words in the metadata, but ranks those higher than the file whose name i typed. In the spotlight menu, obviously, sometimes the file itself doesn't even show up because of so many other files being ranked above it.

I think it should automatically prioritize files containing the search terms in the actual name of the file, then list metadata hits lower.
 
I love Spotlight, I couldn't use the computer without it. It had saved me hours and hours of time searching for documents, and opening apps I dont like to have in my dock.

I agree, it does have its flaws, but hey, this is Spotlight version 1. Bring on Leopard 🙂
 
vikas soni said:
Well. it`s happened for more than a few ocassions now.
Needed my car keys and the first reaction was to look in the top right corner to type car keys. But then I came back to senses and realized that I`ll have to get up and look for the keys by myself. Why is there no spotlight in real LIFE. Couldnt find my drivers license last week. And my fingers were urging me to do a cmd+space and type License.
Dont think I need to say anything else.
Click to expand...
Time to set the pipe down, I think
 
hrmpf said:
i would love to use spotlight all the time but Apple was a bit half baked i think- their patent applications show show features of Spotlight that didn't make it but would make it soooo much better
New Spotlight User Interface
Hierarchical Nested “Smart Folders”
(More) Human Readable Search Queries
better metadata creation- OCR, voice recognition, analysis of images etc

way too much info on the patent applications from hrmpf.com

102309820_66e64e2a44_o.gif
Click to expand...

This interface looks FAR better. I love the hierarchical menu with the Projects etc folders there. Very nice.
 
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