Leopard's Search a Step backwards?

Iritscen

Iritscen

Mr. Grumpikins
I tried to find another thread that covered this -- I'm sure this must have been a big issue for a lot of people, but I can't find any talk about it.

I just upgraded to Leopard, and (I'm a longtime Mac addict so bear in mind that when I say anything critical it hurts me more than it hurts you) I am appalled at the search feature. It used to be so much better than Windows, and now it's lame and crippled. Unless I'm somehow missing something, you can only search in "My Mac" or "[home]", unless you initiate a search from a folder's open window, in which case you can search that folder. Am I the only one bothered by this?

I used to have a custom default_smart.plist file in the Finder that called up a super-find window full of all the criteria I use regularly (keep in mind, I search my HD for data many times a day), and the Find window also automatically remembered all my custom search locations, so I could pick one or more from the list easily. It also remembered that I always prefer to search my hard drive, not my computer, which encompasses all mounted volumes. I don't need to make my external HD perform a dozen more unnecessary spin-ups than it already does in a day (another incredible pet peeve that deserves its own thread).

Does Apple want you to actually open a folder before you can search in it? Because I don't see any way to pick a location in the basic Find window other than the two built-in choices. Very lame. The last thing I need is opening more windows on an already crowded screen thanks to Leopard's huge "overhead" (I'm talking massive window frames that can only be entirely on or off, another pet peeve).

If it weren't for needing the iPhone SDK, I'd probably have downgraded back to Tiger by now. As it is, most of the Mac I knew and loved and hand-crafted is destroyed and malfunctioning. This is only the tip of the iceberg. Sorry for the rant, but I had to get this off my chest. Now to get back to searching the Internet for bug fixes and OS mods.
 
I feel your pain. I was never a fan of Tiger's Spotlight implementation (it was far less useful than Pather's simple search for me), but Leopard's is even more of a hassle.

My only advice is to use a third-party Spotlight front-end instead of the Finder. Some useful ones are NotLight, SpotInside, Laserlight and SpotLook (all free, check MacUpdate to download). Each has its own strengths and weaknesses. I can't say I'm really pleased with any of them, but I haven't really taken the time to get used to them, and they are still useful despite their flaws.
 
Thanks for the quick reply. I'll check those out. And thanks for putting up with the rambling diatribe.
 
Apple in it’s wisdom has removed the “others” button from the search window. As a photographer, I have 800k-1m images, many duplicates, and I often need to search in “only” 2 or 3 specific locations (folders or drives) and want to exclude everywhere else. Smart searches are useless since each search is a new unique one.

This is now impossible, since under leopard – every file with the reference everywhere comes up.

Is there a script I can add to search, or an application that will do this for me with a minimum of fuss.
 
I think Smart Folder Targeteer was made to solve exactly that sort of problem. I haven't had great luck with it myself, but I haven't spent much time trying to figure it out. It's a somewhat complex set of tools, but the impression I get is that once you figure it out it'll be simple to use.
 
Thanks - I will give it a try. I copied in a script in 10.4 so that the default window came up with name, rather than kind (which was useless) since I look for photos by 4 letter codes I assign them.

I don't use smart folders since every search is unique, and rarely in the same location - I want to define them every time.

I just don't want to end up with a "windows" type solution (multistrokes...)
 
Another I noticed with Leopard search, is one can no longer change the view - you are stuck with Name, Kind and date modified - pretty useless set of characteristics. Can't even sort tehe results by label.

Sticking with Tiger - it's almost as if they hired a Micorsoft programmer...
 
For years 5 of us have been filing to an external hard drive that is hooked up to another computer via ethernet. This worked VERY well for us and slowly apple has phased this out of existence for us! We just used the search engines for basic name searchs to access these files that we cataloged by numbers. Apple convoluted this process with too many bells and whistles with leopard and now they tell me that they do not support us.
I can mount these drives, read to theses drives, write to theses drive BUT I CAN'T DO A SIMPLE SEARCH AND ON TOP OF THAT APPLE WON'T SUPPORT THIS PROBLEM THEY CAUSED
Give me a break!! Next upgrade maybe they won't support mounting the drives either!!
If it's not iPod or iPhone related apple sucks!!
 
have to agree. EasyFind works as you'd expect it to - and gives you a lot of options that simply aren't available or at least not visible in Spotlight/Finder, currently.
 
If you're not allergic to the command line, the find command is also very handy. Something like this will find all files with "example" in their name:
Code: 
find / -iname "*example*"
Many more advanced options are available.

I also use EasyFind. It's find-by-content feature is great, and its GUI is helpful even for basic name searches.
 
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