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A few months with Tiger--Dashboard was a fad but Spotlight has changed the world..

S

sigamy

macrumors 65816
Original poster
Mar 7, 2003
1,401
187
NJ USA
For those of us that have been using Tiger for a while, what are your views now on some of the major features?

I initially used Dashboard much more than spotlight. Over the past few weeks I never used Dashboard until I needed to look up a phone number in the yellow pages yesterday.

I now use Spotlight multiple times a day and can't live without it. The real kicker is now at work on Windows 2000 I can't figure out how I'm going to live without Spotlight. I may even download Google desktop search.
 
I'm almost the other way. I rarely use Spotlight although when I need to it's a godsend. I'm more likely to use it in Mail than anywhere else. I would like it on my PC at work though where I have far more files that are similar.

I love Dashboard; I'd say that I use it two or three times a day. The translator widget and the conversion widget are great. The conversion is especially useful when planning trips so you can figure out what prices are in your own currency. I've got a few silly games there too to waste a few minutes every so often.

The one I'd find it tough not to have though is Automator. It's a godsend for long repetitive tasks like renaming files.
 
I very rarely use dashboard, but I'll agree that Spotlight is just an amazing tool. I use it so often to find emails, and now that I've gotten around to organizing my iPhoto library a bit more, I can search for a person's name and see all the emails they've sent me, pictures I have of them, etc. And if I search for the name plus the word blackmail....

I still think the number one can't live without Mac OS X feature is Expose. I seem to use it every two seconds.
 
I've taken spotlight off my system entirely. Whatever idiot at apple wrote the daemon that scans files should be shot. Ever try compiling something? GCC makes lots of little temp files, and spotlight wants to scan every one. It's a ridiculous waste of cpu time and resources when you only want it used on a hand-full of files. 10.4.0 didn't correctly ignore certain directories, too. If you could specify file types for it to search, then it'd be cool. Perhaps they've updated it since 10.4.0 I don't really know. I just keep it gone.
 
Although I use both, I'd have to agree that Spotlight is really the bigger innovation here and has more of an impact on how I use my computer. I now keep my dock very small and just CMD-SPACE to pull up the spotlight window and its easy to find any other app or file I'm looking for. I do use dashboard as well, although I do find it to lag a lot (I only have 512 ram though), but still useful for translating and the such. I do find that I don't use very many third party widgets. Mostly its Airport Radar, Word of the Day, and a few Mini Monitor widgets. I have tried several others and found them not to be very effective at what they claim to do (ex. Gas).
 
I love both Spotlight and Dashboard. Considering the first Mac I ever owned was running Tiger :eek: I really can't imagine the Mac OS without them. When I first got into widgets I thought they were tons of fun, and was just downloading them left and right, at one point I had over 100 widgets on my system. Now that the sparkle has worn off, I'm down to under 30 (including Apple's) and kept only the ones I use on a regular basis. I finally figured out the usefulness to widgets, not just the fun side.
Spotlight is also wonderful. It makes it so simple to just to find any file. I used to keep folder within folder within folder in 'My Documents' on my Windows, so I could find everything easily. Now I just throw everything in 'My Documents' and when I need something I just "spotlight" it. It's teaching me bad organization skills, but oh well. I have often wished that instead of taking hand-written notes during class, I could take them on my computer, just so I could use spotlight, and never have to flip pages again.
 
I use dashboard for the odd currency conversion, calculator etc. Spotlight is just ... amazing. I'm fairly organised but when it comes to getting something fast, spotlight is just the ticket. Exposé is just a bad habit for me. I must waste about an hour everyday just messing about with the windows. Brilliant! :rolleyes:

Haven't even touched Automator. :confused: I wonder what goodies we are going to see with 10.5?
 
I'm a regular user of Dashboard (well i was till I downgraded for a wee bit). Always with the unit convertor, calculator, my local weather and my system uptime.

Spotlight I dont use that often, but when I do its brilliant.

Smart Folders? dont use.
Automator? nope.
 
I hardly use spotlight since most of my files on my system are organized by me. And just the way I like it. :)

Dashboard is used from time to time to check the whether, etc...however that said most of the widgets are US based, so it of no proper use as of yet.

Other than that the system has been stable and responsive, the only two things I can ask that an OS can offer me. :)
 
im more of a dashboard man myself. i click over to dashboard a lot for the date, sysstat, the weather every morning (i ride the bus/train to school so i always want to see what i should wear) then i have lyrics widget that shows the lyrics of my current playing itunes song that i look at a lot.
then spotlight on the other hand i use infrequently. though, when i do use it, its really good/cool. like when i save a file to the wrong folder and dont know where i saved it, then spotlight finds it instantly, and somehow knows exactly what im looking for!!! (im guessing its most recently viewed item with the phrase im looking for somewhere) but i dont like that dashboard can find info in documents, but cand find info in e-mails. to search through e-mails i have to do a specific search in mail, then that takes just as long as ever, its not fast like spotlight. oh well, there are my thoughts!
 
i reinstalled OSX.4 to get X11 so my dashboard is bare i need to get widget to make it mine! does anyone know were i get get the link to the macrumors one that say the headlines( that and CNN are my fav widgets)
 
Since originally loading Tiger after 10.4.1 was ready, I've started Dashboard about 4 times on purpose and about 15 times by accident but haven't found a reason to use it.

Spotlight is great when I need it but I don't use it any more or less than I used Sherlock or any other disk find utility.
 
Spotlight is a nice shortcut for me, and great for PDFs.

But I think Expose is still better than both. Of course I have a 12'' PB, so its really needed.
 
zap2 said:
i reinstalled OSX.4 to get X11 so my dashboard is bare i need to get widget to make it mine! does anyone know were i get get the link to the macrumors one that say the headlines( that and CNN are my fav widgets)
Click to expand...
There's a MacRumors widget?...I want it!
 
Spotlight is the bestest thing ever. I never did get around to reorganizing all those years and years of file trees from different computers into one grand scheme, and now I don't have to :)

Dashboard is nice to have, and I do use it fairly frequently, but it's a take-it-or-leave-it sort of convenience.
 
i barely EVER use dashboard, i don't find it useful, mainly becuase i'm in canada and some of the widgets are states only (that seems to happen with a lot of apple products and apps....) but i do use the weather widget, i have 2, one for toronto, and one for naples florida....dare to dream lol. i also use it for stickies, calculator, and unit converter.....come to think of it i use dashboard quite a bit

spotlight i use by far the most, it is the greatest thing since spring-loaded-folders. i DON'T use smart folders, and i keep my stuff VERY well organized, spotlight still finds it faster though.

automator is completely useless
 
biohazard_6969 said:
i barely EVER use dashboard, i don't find it useful, mainly becuase i'm in canada and some of the widgets are states only (that seems to happen with a lot of apple products and apps....) but i do use the weather widget, i have 2, one for toronto, and one for naples florida....dare to dream lol. i also use it for stickies, calculator, and unit converter.....come to think of it i use dashboard quite a bit

spotlight i use by far the most, it is the greatest thing since spring-loaded-folders. i DON'T use smart folders, and i keep my stuff VERY well organized, spotlight still finds it faster though.

automator is completely useless
Click to expand...
Dare I ask what "spring-loaded-folders" are?
 
I used Dashboard at first, and still do for some little things, but Spotlight has fully replaced the "Favorites" folder for me, even simply going to the Applications folder and finding an app to open...most of the time it's just faster to cmd-space and type into Spotlight. Why have a calculator widget running all the time eating up memory (or else take the time to enter the menus to start it) when I can just call the actual application up through Spotlight.
 
Dashboard is okay, more of a toy for me.

But Spotlight is amazing!!! I am a very disorganized person by nature so Spotlight makes finding something revolutionary for me. I love it! The one feature I can't ever do without again. I also like Tiger's Mail.
 
I use dashboard constantly, spotlight occasionally, and automator every once in a while.

Question about spotlight though - isn't it supposed to search the text of documents? I have documents that I KNOW should be coming up (they contain the word), but they don't. What gives? :confused:
 
QCassidy352 said:
I use dashboard constantly, spotlight occasionally, and automator every once in a while.

Question about spotlight though - isn't it supposed to search the text of documents? I have documents that I KNOW should be coming up (they contain the word), but they don't. What gives? :confused:
Click to expand...

Yeah it definitelty searches the text of documents. Download OnyX and reindex Spotlight.
 
I find dashboard very useful, I dont really think its a fad. Reason I don't use it all that much is because its a RAM sucker. I hate that. Also, I think spotlight could be 10 times better... Anyone notice how you can search "Photosh" and get PhotoShop on the list, but you can't search "otoshop"? Thats stupid. I know its been discussed on these boards before and I really wish Apple would fix this, as sometimes I know what file ends with, but not how it begins... Really annoying...
 
darkwing said:
I've taken spotlight off my system entirely. Whatever idiot at apple wrote the daemon that scans files should be shot. Ever try compiling something? GCC makes lots of little temp files, and spotlight wants to scan every one. It's a ridiculous waste of cpu time and resources when you only want it used on a hand-full of files. 10.4.0 didn't correctly ignore certain directories, too. If you could specify file types for it to search, then it'd be cool. Perhaps they've updated it since 10.4.0 I don't really know. I just keep it gone.
Click to expand...
Sometimes I uses spotlight to search codes, especially when I am troubleshooting someone else's and have no time to scan all the files.
 
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