Is anyone else less than impressed with Spotlight? Completely aside from the fact that it's a pain in the backside to get it to index images (can be done with mdutil I think?), and that it won't index removable media, it also is simply inconsistent about the things it does find.

Take this screenshot for an example.

Note the info window in the background for Essay Grades.xls. I have put in Spotlight keywords 'iDisk Backup'. The reason for this is there are files that I store on my iDisk that I would like to backup and archive automatically via an Automator plugin.

The only thing is, the Automator plugin I created can't find the files by keyword search.

Why not? After all, take a look at the spotlight popup in the screenshot. A search for 'iDisk Backup' returns Essay Grades.xls, along with the other files I marked with identical keywords. Something fishy is going on.

Furthermore, look at the Finder search. Supposedly this is using the same search API as the Spotlight panel, yet it can't find anything using exactly the same string as the Spotlight popup. Why in the world would there be any difference between the two? Why can the panel find what I want when Automator and Finder cannot?

So yeah, less than impressed

i did the same sort of test by adding spotlight comment on to a .rtf file and searched throught spotlight and finders search bot found the .rtf file contains comment I made earlier with spotlight showing the rtf file as Top hit

I see that you have put criterie as a keyword could you just type idisk backup in to the finders search bar ? it should popup the files you are looking for

I don't know what problems your system is having. Spotlight works consistently for me from the app in the corner to Finder to Automator.

Corona: Yeah it does, but I can't get Automator to do it. I am trying to do a dirty fix in Automator by doing an 'any' search for iDisk Backup and narrowing that down with other criteria like extensions.. but this is not a very elegant solution.

If the Spotlight popup can find a string in the comments, a keyword search within Automator should turn up the same results.

Hopefully 10.4.1 will fix all of these little bugs.

im not a mac user but it looks like in the screen, youre searching for a "computer" named idisk which, doesnt exist? search for folder documents or smthg. im not mac user so i have no idea how this goes. no flame

It indexes all my images by default. I tried the same test as you, and was able to bring up the same files under both searches



Good idea, but that just shows what directory he is searching in. It signifies he is searching any hard disk in his computer

in automator you have to use spotlight in the library than drag and drop spotlight from the actions in to the workspace then you could search for it, than you could use finder library and filter finder items action to filter them out, it worked fine, if you havent give it a go

Chad: sorry, I meant disk images. I don't really care about that anyway, that's a minor grumble. My main concern is that Automator can't find files based on their keywords in a keyword-specific search, whereas it can find them on an 'any' search. That's just not right.

What I'm trying to achieve is an easy backup of my iDisk documents (which come in many flavours.. doc, xls, vdoc, rtf, pdf, etc). With Spotlight and Automator, as they have been advertised, it should be a simple thing to automate the process of finding files by keyword and archiving them.

I guess not

edit: okay, I've just tried disk images again and now it seems to be working fine. Withdrawn

Corona: yeah, my original workflow went like this
1. Spotlight - Find Finder Items (keyword 'iDisk Backup)
2. Finder - Get Finder Items
3. Finder - Create Archive (save to ~/Documents)
4. Finder - Rename Finder Items (to add current date)

edit: I'm just going to make the keywords unique and do an 'any' search for the exact phrase. It'll work, it just takes a little bit of the shine and luster out of Tiger

use spotlight action instead of find finder items , and see what happens

Edit: I just used finder library instead of spot library and find finder items action seems working and the file i made had spotlight comment on it and i searched for that comment and found it,

Spotlight is awesome, you can index any drive or media including windows shares with:

PureEdit: yep, that's what I found.. thanks macosxhints.com.

I have my workflow running now. Had to make the keyword so unique that an 'any' search could never turn up a false positive. Still a bit peeved that it can't successfully search on the keyword itself, but at least it's working.

Thanks everyone.

Okay, I'm sorry to dig this up again, but Spotlight simply doesn't work properly and it's growing quite tiresome dealing with its inconsistencies.

To illustrate with a relevant example, look at this.

How can it be possible for Spotlight to find the file in one instance and not in another?

i don't know whats up with your computer man but i tried that for the hell of it... both worked with no problem

no inconsistancy problems with tiger... at all.

cause i dont have Tiger yet ( ) i cant really say, but it looks like your searching within a folder called "iDisk Backups" in the open dialog, yet the big spotlight window is searching through everything.

Nah, it's checking the whole system. See how the 'computer' button is depressed? That's the level at which the search is running. You can narrow it down by moving to 'home' or the 'folder' one.