shownotes_MCM20120226

Spotlight
  Opening
    I often see or hear people complaining that Spotlight is "broken".
    I happen to be a big fan of Spotlight and I think on the whole it works fairly well.
    I also think that some of the "broken" things that people encounter can be fixed with a little more advanced knowledge of how Spotlight works and some of the tricks you can use to find things and make your result more relevant.
  Spotlight Menubar
    Typically clicking on a result opens that item, but what if you want to open the folder containing that items to see where it is in the Finder?
      Hit Command + Enter on the highlighted file in Spotlight to open it’s location in a new Finder window.
    Use Command+I on a highlighted item to get info on it right from Spotlight result
    In Lion you can drag item directly out of the results
      Drop directly onto an app in the dock to open in that app
      Drag out to make a copy of that file (notice the "+" icon)
      Hold Command+Option to create an Alias
    In Lion, you get the preview when you hover, but it has it's own tricks
      If you press and hold the Command key it will pop-up the Preview of the Top Hit
      Hold down the command key to get a scrolling list of additional info at the bottom of the preview window
        Path to file
        Matched metadata information
        Mailbox
      Press Command-Option to see the path instantly.
      Some file types can have interaction
        Contact field labels can be clicked (just like in Address Book) for additional info
  Spotlight Finder Window
    Accessed from the Finder, using Command+F or Option+Command+Space from anywhere
      You can change this setting in System Preferences > Spotlight
      Set the 'Spotlight Window Keyboard Shortcut'
    Top of the Window offer 3 search locations
      This Mac (default), the current folder or volume you initiated the search from, and I have the 'Shared' folder
    Click the small + button right next to “Save”, you can add additional search parameters.
      File kind: Here you can select the kind of file you are looking for. This allows you to, for example, specifically search for PDF files only
      Last opened date: This is the time the file was last opened/read
      Last modified date: This is the time the file was last written and therefore changed
      Created date: This is the time the file was initially created
      Name: This is the file name only
      Contents: These are the contents of the file itself, which is particularly helpful for text documents such as PDFs or Word files.
    Other…: a large list of other options
      You can scroll through the list or search
      The "In Menu" checkbox allows you to add you frequently used parameters to the main list
      Two very useful ones I think are 'System files' and 'File visibility'
    You can add additional search parameters by clicking the "+" button
    Hold the alt key, you will see that the + button turned into an ellipsis (…), then you can add boolean style parameters. Options are Any, All, or None of the conditions are met.
  General search query tips
    Typing words will search for ALL of those words by default.
    You can require exact matches to multiple words or a phrase by using enclosing quotes
    Boolean keyword operators are also supported AND, OR, NOT. Typed in upper case. You can use parenthesis to group them
    adding a "-" without a space in front of a term just like 'NOT;
  Going Meta
    Metadata keywords are the key to Spotlight searching power
    There are 125 and growing and learning some of these will help you a lot.
    The basic syntax is: AttributeType:attribute
    The attribute type can often be guessed by looking at the Get Info on a file and specifically the 'More Info' section.
      Pretty much any term you see listed there could be used as a AttributeType. Just type it all lowercase with no spaces followed by the ":"
    There is also a great PDF document at hints.macworld.com
    Some helpful metadata keywords
      kind:
        image, PDF, message or email, event, contact
      date:
        You can use terms like "today","yesterday","this week", or dates and date ranges (i.e. 2010-2011)
      name:
      contains:
      width:
      dpi:
      subject:
      from: or to:
    You can combine these to create some powerful results
      kind:contact name:[Persons Name]
      kind:jpeg width:600
      kind:email date:"this week" from:[email address]
  Super Nerdy Command Line Stuff
    Open up Terminal. Applications > Utilities > Terminal
    mdfind command to search
      Type 'mdfind 'search term' and hit enter
      If you need to exit the results before they finish hit Control+C
      Of course you can do all the command line goodies like piping results of searches, etc.
      There are several options of course, but a helpful one is '-onlyin [folder]' restricts the search to that specific folder.
      Can also add in 'kMDitem' metadata keyword name value pairs. Big list at www.real-world-systems.com—mdAtt.1.html
    Rebuild Spotlight index
      Apple's way:
        From the Apple menu, choose System Preferences.
        Click Spotlight.
        Click the Privacy tab.
        Drag a folder or even an entire volume (your hard drive) to the list.
        Remove the item or volume you just added.
      From the Terminal use the command:
        sudo mdutil -E /
        Then enter your admin password. It will take a moment and then return: "Indexing enabled. "
        After that you should see the Spotlight Indexing animation in the menu bar.