We've Met Some People Who Don't Like Spotlight

and we think we know some of the reasons why.

1. Spotlight Gives Me Weird Results

Look at this screen shot of the Spotlight Menu.
What does all this stuff have to do with the search criteria "italy"?

Well, let's see why all this stuff shows up:

• the Top Hit and the Folder are not weird
• the Mail Messages all mention Italy in their content
• the Contact Mario Ricci has the country of Italy set in his contact info
  (no, Spotlight isn't saying that he has a very Italian sounding name)
• the Events and To Do's all mention Italy in their descriptions
• the three Images have the iPhoto keyword "italy" applied
• the PDF Document came from someone in Italy
• the Bookmark mentions Italy
• the Music Comments field mention that they were written in Italy
• the Movie—DSCN0948.MOV? What the heck does that have to do with Italy? There is a Spotlight Comment on the movie saying "traffic in Milan. Took this during my vacation in Italy".

Nothing weird here. It's just that this kind of deep thinking and organizing is something very new to you. Very new and very, very cool once you understand it.

2. Command F is Dead Long live Command F

Before Spotlight we could press Command F and perform a useful but limited kind of searching—search for some characters in a file name. And since this was often the only hope we had of finding something we got attached, really attached, to it.

But in Tiger, OS X 10.4, Command F opens a Smart Folder. A Smart Folder is a set of Spotlight capabilities wrapped in a Finder Window. Smart Folders are really useful and even a lot of fun once you understand them but it will take you some time to learn all their features. If you are really in a hurry looking for a file you might complain about Spotlight showing you something that looks like it's from the Star Trek Enterprise. (Note: after you really discover Spotlight you will be a lot more relaxed about finding that file.)

3. It Used to be So Simple

Old school Command F find in filenames was really simple. It took you about 5 minutes to learn and you have used it for years. Sure you could expand the search window to include a few other criteria but did you do that often? We didn't think so. Neither did we.

Spotlight is a deep subject, until you get it, then it's simple too. But when you first encounter Spotlight you might resent the fact it's not as simple as Command F used to be.

4. You Have to Learn New Techniques

Spotlight has it's own techniques that you have to learn. For example, Spotlight searches from the beginning of words not in the middle of words. With Spotlight you can't type "enice" and expect to find anything about "Venice" (nor nicevenicephoto.jpg etc.) So your old reliable habits have become non-useful. They keep you out of the bright new Spotlighted world. You have to un-learn your old habits and learn the new.

So?

We can't help you with your attitude but we have made it easy for you to learn all of Spotlight's important features.

Our Spotlight movie demonstrates all of Spotlight's important features so you can learn how to use Spotlight the easiest way possible. If you watch our movie you will learn to appreciate what's happened to Command F, you will realize that Spotlight is really pretty simple to use and you will learn, in a very easy way, all the important features of this grrrreat new technology.