Spotlight's Gone!....finally

[Foxglove9]

I never use Spotlight either. Truthfully, I'm not even sure what it does. I usually just use the Command+F in Finder and that always seems to do the job for me.

I'm usually highly organized with my files though. I wouldn't disable Spotlight because it's good to know there is another tool available on my OS in case the need comes up.

In the beginning I never used Expose either. But that grew on me with time.

 

[Killyp]

Gawd what's wrong with Spotlight?!?

It's an amazing technology IMO. Don't be so quick to judge something...

It has completely changed the way I use my computer! Just hit Apple Key + Space, type in a file name you want, hit enter and boomph! It's there.

I use an external drive, and it has no problems with indexing lag or anything. I have it formatted as Mac OS Extended (Journaled). No issues at all...

 

[whooleytoo]

I find Spotlight pretty annoying too - I generally use it only as a launcher now.

- I have 3 Macs, and on all three I've had to manually rebuild the Spotlight index. On one of my G5s, it couldn't find a file, searching by name, on the desktop - surely the easiest case for any search engine. On my MBP, I had to rebuild the index yesterday when a search for "we" didn't turn up any hits. Rebuilt the index, and now it finds several thousand. That's not "buggy", that's "broken".

- Spotlight is case sensitive, to a degree. If you search for "timemovie", it will find a file named "QuickTimeMovie", but won't find "QuicktimeMovie". That example is spurious, but as a programmer I have thousands of files named with mixed-case, and this case-sensitivity doesn't help.

- If Spotlight finds the file you seek straight away; and you scroll down the menu (using the keyboard) to select and open it; Spotlight auto-highlights the first option. I've lost count of the number of times I've opened the wrong file/launched the wrong application because Spoglight is moving the selection in the menu.

- The Spotlight search results window doesn't 'belong' to any application, so you can't switch to it by Cmd-Tabbing, or by tabbing while using Exposé.

- The "i" (info) buttons in the search results window don't work (well, perhaps one click in 3, they will). Don't know why, but it's pretty annoying.

 

[solace]

Gawd what's wrong with Spotlight?!?

It's an amazing technology IMO. Don't be so quick to judge something...

It has completely changed the way I use my computer! Just hit Apple Key + Space, type in a file name you want, hit enter and boomph! It's there.

I use an external drive, and it has no problems with indexing lag or anything. I have it formatted as Mac OS Extended (Journaled). No issues at all...

it's fine, it's just that there's 3rd party apps (that came before it) that are better at what it does... and way faster...

see Launchbar for one... Quicksilver isn't bad either

anyone know how to disable the Spotlight menu in Leopard? the Search.bundle trick no longer works, as that directory/file no longer exists

 

[sunfast]

In fact, I like the balance of the two blue things on each end of the menu bar!

I'd never noticed that - but I like it too!

 

[iMeowbot]

I never use Spotlight either. Truthfully, I'm not even sure what it does. I usually just use the Command+F in Finder and that always seems to do the job for me.

In Tiger, Finder's Cmd-F is Spotlight, just with a nicer interface.

 

[dextertangocci]

I feel sorry for you!

I would be lost without spotlight!!!

 

[solace]

ah, i figured out how to disable in the user Menu in Leopard, just chmod Spotlight.app in the same directory that Search.bundle used to be in to 0000 and then kill Spotlight in the activity monitor

dexter, give Launchbar a try, it's quit amazing and well worth the $$ imo

 

[GimmeSlack12]

Ahhhh, that's much better.

I've been trying to disable Spotlight for a long time. My solution: Quicksilver.

 

[stcanard]

Ahhhh, that's much better.

I've been trying to disable Spotlight for a long time. My solution: Quicksilver.

If you consider Quicksilver a replacement for Spotlight than you are completely misunderstanding Spotlight.

Spotlight is searching contents and meta-data, Quicksilver is searching names / locations. The metadata search capabilities in Quicksilver is just an interface to Spotlight.

If you type "Dinner Tuesday" into Spotlight, it will show you the email message where you made plans. In Quicksilver you will get a file that has as many of those characters as possible.

The are two completely different, but complimentary apps.

 

[GimmeSlack12]

If you consider Quicksilver a replacement for Spotlight than you are completely misunderstanding Spotlight.

I don't consider it a Replacement. I know the differences.
But Quicksilver rules!

 

[Scruff]

I use Spotlight to find songs quickly and open them in iTunes . I use it a fair amount I suppose. I'm pretty organised, but it's still very handy.

 

[stcanard]

I don't consider it a Replacement. I know the differences.
But Quicksilver rules!

Okay that's a start then I'm surprised how many people don't know the difference.

Quicksilver is indespensible as an app launcher. But Spotlight is worth it for its ability to search email alone! So often at work I VNC to my home system so I can spotlight for that server migration plan we wrote 3 months ago, instead of taking 1/2 hour to find it in Outlook.

I don't use it nearly as much for files. The set of files I've worked on in the last week its faster to hit them through finder. But if my wife wants me to find that daycare invoice for $1200 we issued two months ago, spotlight is the way to get it!

 

[trainguy77]

I thought I would never use spotlight when i first installed to. But once you start using it you never want to go back. I can find any application any utility with just a couple seconds......a fraction of the time it tacks to drill down to the applications folder and find it. But I guess its your choice, but I would suggest give it a try you might like it.

 

[clevin]

lol, spotlight is really a better feature in tiger. going into application folder to find ur app is such a hassle.

 

[amin]

I use Spotlight a ton. I find it to be the single best feature since 10.2. Much more useful to me than Expose or Spaces.

 

[huck500]

Quicksilver is indespensible as an app launcher.

I just don't get how it could possibly be easier to launch an app than using Spotlight. I'm going to install Quicksilver and try it out for a while...but it takes me 2 seconds to launch any app on my computer, is QS faster than that?

 

[Super Macho Man]

Plus, why would you even take the time to disable Spotlight? Uses to much RAM? CPU usage? I don't see any reason to disable it, even if you don't use it. Even if you'll only use it once in your life. But why??

The Spotlight indexes do use drive space... possibly several GBs depending on how many files you have on your drives. One of mine was 1.5GB when I ran Spotless to delete it and turn off Spotlight (550MHz G4, need all the free CPU and disk I can get). I reckon when I get a new iMac, I'll leave Spotlight on since the performance/disk impact will be much less.

 

[clevin]

I just don't get how it could possibly be easier to launch an app than using Spotlight. I'm going to install Quicksilver and try it out for a while...but it takes me 2 seconds to launch any app on my computer, is QS faster than that?

quicksilver need less key punches than spotlight

 

[stcanard]

quicksilver need less key punches than spotlight

More than that, Quicksilver has a huge advantage over Spotlight as an App Launcher:

Its adaptive. The more you use an item, the higher on the list it is.

If I spotlight "i" right now, I get iMovie as the top hit. Below that I get Preview, Sharing folder, and "My Great Movie".

Quicksilver "i" suggests iTunes -- because it knows I use that far more than the others.

OTOH if (from my previous example), I spotlight "Dinner Tuesday" I get an email confirming my hotel reservation that includes dinner at their restaurant on Tuesday (from a month ago, but oh well).

It I use Quicksilver I get "APEX DVD Firmare Naming Requirements.txt"

Very definitely not as useful. Each is incredibly efficient at its own domain.

 

[clevin]

sry, retract this post.

 

[ghall]

I could not live without Spotlight. I have files all over my hard drive, and I end up forgetting where I put something. I wish my house had spotlight!

 

[huck500]

After using QS for a day, I do like the fact that you can type in the name of an app and then just hit Return, instead of having to move down one on Spotlight. It's automatic for me now, but it would shave a couple of tenths of a second off... and it's just silly that Apple doesn't give you the option to default to the #1 choice.

The learning aspect of QS is a cool concept, but one I can live without... it might shave another fraction of a second off, but I'm not in that much of a hurry. I like running my OS as cleanly as possible, and QS just doesn't add enough to justify it. Great freeware, though!

 

[QuarterSwede]

- If Spotlight finds the file you seek straight away; and you scroll down the menu (using the keyboard) to select and open it; Spotlight auto-highlights the first option. I've lost count of the number of times I've opened the wrong file/launched the wrong application because Spoglight is moving the selection in the menu.

Yeah that is annoying. All it would take to fix is programming Spotlight to stop searching as soon as you start arrowing down the list.

Also, to highlight the Top Hit just hold the command key after entering search text. That helps cut down on opening the wrong file.

- The Spotlight search results window doesn't 'belong' to any application, so you can't switch to it by Cmd-Tabbing, or by tabbing while using Exposé.

Never noticed that ... haven't needed to use it that way I suppose. Yeah, I hope they have fixed that in Leopard.

 

[SC68Cal]

Talk about nitpickers and whiners. I have a 667 TiBook and Spotlight has never bogged down my system.