Spotlight comments.

[pulsewidth947]

Has anyone had any luck using spotlight comments yet? I added some to some home movies I have on my external drive a few days ago and they still arent showing up in spotlight.

Do I have to force re-indexing to get them to show?

 

[michaelrjohnson]

Perhaps this is a related comment, but I'm not sure.

I've noticed that one of the options in creating a Smart Folder is the "Keyword" field. However, I cannot find any further information as to where to add keywords to folders/files, etc. Under "Get Info..." there are "Spotlight Comments...". Are these one in the same? If so, why the difference of terminology?

Thanks!

 

[Applespider]

I've noticed that one of the options in creating a Smart Folder is the "Keyword" field. However, I cannot find any further information as to where to add keywords to folders/files, etc. Under "Get Info..." there are "Spotlight Comments...". Are these one in the same? If so, why the difference of terminology?

I assumed that the keyword field was for iPhoto where there are indeed Keywords named as such. Having just tested, spotlight does bring back the appropriate images.

 

[michaelrjohnson]

I assumed that the keyword field was for iPhoto where there are indeed Keywords named as such. Having just tested, spotlight does bring back the appropriate images.

That would make logical sense, but then I would have expected the Smart Folder qualification to read "iPhoto Keyword" rather than "Keywords". That's very confusing. Is there any possibility that there is another option, or is this the sole answer to the conundrum?

 

[me_94501]

That would make logical sense, but then I would have expected the Smart Folder qualification to read "iPhoto Keyword" rather than "Keywords". That's very confusing. Is there any possibility that there is another option, or is this the sole answer to the conundrum?

It is possible to assign keywords to Word docs through Word. KEyword assignment is handled through applications as opposed to the Finder for some reason...

 

[michaelrjohnson]

It is possible to assign keywords to Word docs through Word. KEyword assignment is handled through applications as opposed to the Finder for some reason...

Interesting. So there's no real "standard" here?

 

[devman]

Has anyone had any luck using spotlight comments yet? I added some to some home movies I have on my external drive a few days ago and they still arent showing up in spotlight.

Do I have to force re-indexing to get them to show?

works for me (on an internal drive).

1. created a file foo.txt with textedit on desktop.
2. searched on an obscure string with spotlight "dabba" with no hits found
3. cmd-i on foo.txt and put "dabba" in spotlight comments, closed info window
3. searched on dabba in spotlight and it found foo.txt

Edit: tried same thing on an external drive with the same results.

 

[pulsewidth947]

Interesting. Thanks for that devman looks like I'll be reindexing then

 

[pulsewidth947]

Spotlight Metadata Incompatible with FAT32.

Well I've just read some horrific news -

Spotlight doesn't find everything?
Apart from it taking some time to display everything it finds (so you might have to, well, just wait a little longer, it could be that you're trying to find something that's on a FAT32 formatted (Windows) external drive. Those are not fully indexed by content/metadata, i.e. Spotlight will only find your search-terms in the filenames for those drives. There is not currently a solution to this (i.e. you won't be able to metadata-spotlight such a device). A workaround is to reformat the drive (make sure to back it up!) in Mac OS Extended (HFS+) format. But then you can't share the drive with PC users any longer.

So my choices are not be able to use the damn comments I spent time putting in, or backup the hd (which could be difficult as I've only got 80/40gb drives in my Macs) then reformat as HFS or whatever it is. Of course then I wont be able to use the Movies in Windows.

Shame on you Apple, why didnt you document this on your support site? guess I'll be working out how to partition the drive and have half Fat32, half HFS