Any way to search the old-fashioned way?
- Thread starter Mikuro
- Start date
This is what you can do to remove the spotlight icon from the top-right hand corner of the screen.
Having done this, pressing CMD-F will yield the spotlight find.
Code:
1. Go to Macintosh HD/System/Library/coreservices using an admin account
2. Rename the search.bundle to something else, provide admin password as asked
3. reboot the macHaving done this, pressing CMD-F will yield the spotlight find.
Mikuro
Crotchety UI Nitpicker
Ah. Well, Spotlight has a "filename" criteria, which, in theory, should work just like the old search. It also should, in theory, behave just as it used to when searching non-indexed drives. Not all Spotlight searches use fancy-schmancy metadata fields.yanges said:
I say "in theory", because I still have no idea why it's not working with this one disk image I'm trying to search. But it seems like this is the exception, not the rule; Spotlight can find by filename on all other non-indexed volumes I've tested so far.
I'm still clueless as to what makes this one disk image so special that it breaks Spotlight.
What baffles me is that this so called new super user friendly method of search for information inside a mac DOES NOT SEARCH everywhere.If think Apple has missed a point if they believe that each and every mac user will spend time populating meta-data fields or other similar fields before they can search their existing information.
SpotLight, should as a minimum have some sort of bridge with information that is not "documented" to its search requirements.
for those looking to customize SpotLight, here are some good tips:
Now we can talk about how search results are presented. In the Spotlight menu, and also in the Spotlight window when results are grouped by kind, results are clumped into categories. What categories are shown, and in what order, is determined by your settings in the Spotlight system preferences, in the Search Results pane.
You can uncheck a category to keep results that fall into that category from showing up at all, and you can rearrange the list of categories using drag-and-drop to determine the order when results are grouped by kind. These settings affect search results immediately; for example, if the Spotlight window is open and you change the settings in the Spotlight preference pane, the display of the results in the Spotlight search window will change in response.
Finally, its time to tell Spotlight where it should not look, and you do this in the Privacy pane of the Spotlight system preferences. Spotlight will not dive into areas where you would be forbidden by user permissions (such as another users Documents folder); but you might have a reason for excluding further areas from being part of a searchfor instance, a certain folder might contain only old stuff you never want searched. Drag a folder from the Finder into the list here, or use the plus-button, and Spotlight will exclude the contents of that folder (and all folders inside that folder, and so forth) from searches. In fact, when you do this, you might hear the hard disk working for a while; thats Spotlight removing from its index the metadata for everything inside the specified folder.
Tip: But what about the opposite of privacy? What if theres an area of your hard disk that youd like Spotlight to include in its searches, but it doesnt, even though permissions give you access to that area? (The top-level Developer folder, created when you install the Developer Tools, seems to be such an area; some hidden rule apparently prevents Spotlight from indexing it.) Using Terminal, you can force Spotlight to index a directory. At the prompt, type this, substituting the actual pathname of a directory (and press Return): mdimport -f /path/to/directory
as seen here:
http://www.macworld.com/2005/05/features/takecontroltigercust/index.php
maybe you can add stuff that you have had trouble getting it to index...
Now we can talk about how search results are presented. In the Spotlight menu, and also in the Spotlight window when results are grouped by kind, results are clumped into categories. What categories are shown, and in what order, is determined by your settings in the Spotlight system preferences, in the Search Results pane.
You can uncheck a category to keep results that fall into that category from showing up at all, and you can rearrange the list of categories using drag-and-drop to determine the order when results are grouped by kind. These settings affect search results immediately; for example, if the Spotlight window is open and you change the settings in the Spotlight preference pane, the display of the results in the Spotlight search window will change in response.
Finally, its time to tell Spotlight where it should not look, and you do this in the Privacy pane of the Spotlight system preferences. Spotlight will not dive into areas where you would be forbidden by user permissions (such as another users Documents folder); but you might have a reason for excluding further areas from being part of a searchfor instance, a certain folder might contain only old stuff you never want searched. Drag a folder from the Finder into the list here, or use the plus-button, and Spotlight will exclude the contents of that folder (and all folders inside that folder, and so forth) from searches. In fact, when you do this, you might hear the hard disk working for a while; thats Spotlight removing from its index the metadata for everything inside the specified folder.
Tip: But what about the opposite of privacy? What if theres an area of your hard disk that youd like Spotlight to include in its searches, but it doesnt, even though permissions give you access to that area? (The top-level Developer folder, created when you install the Developer Tools, seems to be such an area; some hidden rule apparently prevents Spotlight from indexing it.) Using Terminal, you can force Spotlight to index a directory. At the prompt, type this, substituting the actual pathname of a directory (and press Return): mdimport -f /path/to/directory
as seen here:
http://www.macworld.com/2005/05/features/takecontroltigercust/index.php
maybe you can add stuff that you have had trouble getting it to index...
After writing about my drags with Spotlight in this article - http://story.ch/cgi-bin/macnews.cgi/2005/05/23#20050522_wishlist - today, I've been given the most simple answer to my prayers... You _CAN_ search by name in Spotlight. Simply search for "filename". Yeah. Add those quotes and Spotlight does what I want. I think the people in charge for explaining how Spotlight works should be shot. After being tortured, of course.