Smart Folders

O

OzBert

Bored
I've been thinking since I've been looking into some of the new features in Microsoft Foghorn ( :rolleyes: ) One of the things that sound cool is that you can go and look at all your music files and it doesn't matter where they are.

This leads me on to why don't Apple do smart folders? Like they do with smart albums and smart playlists. Just think, you could put a smart folder in the finders side bar that shows all your images

-or-

all the documents you've worked on in the last month.

-or-

All docs labelled as important.

I know the file system in foghorn is made for this sort of thing, and Panther isn't but it would sure make it easeir to search..

What do you think?
 
Thats not a bad idea, I'm sure we will see that, either by Apple or a 3rd party. I wonder if a Apple script can do it??? Say you open the folder, it looks for whatever meets that criteria you specified when you made the folder. So it would have to patch into the Finders "Find" to retrieve this. So actually it is a Find, just disguised as a folder, and it caches this info to speed up the search next time. :)
 
Browni is right: you can do these things right now.
You can simply search for all the things you mentioned: image extensions, date created/modified and label. Create a folder, attach a Folder action and make an applescript that searches your HD and puts copies/links to the requested items in it and updates it's comtents daily or hourly depending on need.
OTOH, iPhoto already serves the purpose of cataloging your photo's and your image folder is intended to hold your other images ... make a habit of putting them there and you won't need a smart folder. There also is the "recent items" entry in the apple menu and "recent folders" in the Finder's Go menu. There surely is/should be a way to tweak those.
 
Well actually you would need to perform a search, i figured out the unix search part, now if there was a way to get into the Finders Find, i could set up the folder action to display the results of the search. This script will search my either MIME type or extension, both of which i made scripts for already. So it can be done, and I can make a dialog that pops up and you specify what you would like to be in this folder, either by inserting the extension or selecting an application, which all related files will appear. And using the Find would be a better method, because 1, it already does such a thing, 2 it already has the right structure. So copying a ton of aliases, would not be the best method, because they would need to be deleted if they nolonger exists...
 
One would need a list of aliases, so that we don't need a search each time we open the folder, and a background synch process to delete "old" aliases. Smart Folder aware apps would directly update the alias list as they same or move the specified kind of files.

But frankly I'm no fan of this type of features.... because I use folders to keep my data organized, not flatten !!!
 
Browni said:
i have one thing to say :

FOLDER ACTIONS +RECENT DOCUMENTS + APPLE SCRIPT !!!

:p
Click to expand...
The problem with this method, of course, is that it requires effort on the part of the user. That may be no problem for power users, but it sure is for novices who don't even know what folder actions, etc. are.

The Finder should have some way to save a search as a clickable (yet unalterable), dynamically-updated folder. That would be awesome.
 
nice app, but it would need smarter criteria, like the possibility to put in the same folder JPEG and GIF file aliases.
 
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