Macworld: Create good queries in Spotlight ...

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23 Replies Last post: May 19, 2008 8:58 AM by Jthomp Go to original post 1 2 Previous Next

Curlypaws

7 posts since
Feb 27, 2008

15. May 14, 2008 11:14 AM

in response to: Macworld

Re: Create good queries in Spotlight

For me, Pages documents have a type of "kind:SLDocumentTypeNativePublication" - which is slightly less than helpful. Does anyone know why this should be? It seems to affect all of the iWork 08 apps on my Mac.

kirkmc

116 posts since
Mar 29, 2004

16. May 16, 2008 12:13 AM

in response to: Macworld

Re: Create good queries in Spotlight

Just use kind:pages; that'll find them all. Those long forms are used internally, but have equivalents.

Kirk

Curlypaws

7 posts since
Feb 27, 2008

17. May 16, 2008 12:32 AM

in response to: kirkmc

Re: Create good queries in Spotlight

Hi Kirk,

Thanks very much for your reply. I guess that link back to the simpler form is broken on my system. When I try kind:pages I get nothing returned at all, but the long form works. I tried re-installing iWork 08 without any luck (it affects Numbers and Keynote too). Everything else seems OK through Spotlight, it is just an iWork thing.

Karen

sjk

91 posts since
Jan 10, 2005

18. May 16, 2008 2:24 PM

in response to: Curlypaws

Re: Create good queries in Spotlight

Curlypaws wrote:
When I try kind:pages I get nothing returned at all, but the long form works. I tried re-installing iWork 08 without any luck (it affects Numbers and Keynote too).

Have you tried rebuilding the Spotlight index?

Curlypaws

7 posts since
Feb 27, 2008

19. May 16, 2008 4:41 PM

in response to: sjk

Re: Create good queries in Spotlight

Hi sjk,

Thanks for your reply. Yes, I have tried that - without success. I've tried searching for anything similar, but haven't found any mention of it. I'm starting to think that only a re-install of Leopard and my applications from scratch will cure it (in which case I'll just need to put up with using the long versions).

Thanks,

Karen

sjk

91 posts since
Jan 10, 2005

20. May 16, 2008 11:29 PM

in response to: Curlypaws

Re: Create good queries in Spotlight

Curlypaws wrote:
Yes, I have tried that - without success.

Two other things you might want to try:

• Temporarily configure Pages documents to open with a different app, then set them back to open with Pages.
• Rebuild the Launch Services database.

Curlypaws

7 posts since
Feb 27, 2008

21. May 17, 2008 3:32 AM

in response to: sjk

Re: Create good queries in Spotlight

Hi sjk,

You are my hero! The suggestion of changing the documents to open with another app worked, although I had to do the following (in case it helps anyone else):

change the default app (e.g. to BBEdit)
open every document with the new default program
close all the documents (quitting does this quickly)
change the default app back to Pages

Changing the default and then changing it back straight away wasn't enough for some strange reason. I'd previously tried the Launch Services route without success. I can now do proper Spotlight searches for "kind:pages"!

Thanks very much,

Karen

sjk

91 posts since
Jan 10, 2005

22. May 17, 2008 5:31 PM

in response to: Curlypaws

Re: Create good queries in Spotlight

Curlypaws wrote:
Thanks very much

You're welcome. Thanks for the detailed explanation of what you did to get it working properly.

Jthomp

1 posts since
May 19, 2008

23. May 19, 2008 8:58 AM

in response to: Macworld

Re: Create good queries in Spotlight

I don't understand why you can't limit a search to the drive where the file is. Spotlight searches everywhere, everytime. I generally know what drive the file is located on. I don't know what folder it's buried in.

I use DiskTracker now for almost all of my searches. It seems faster on our G4s and G5s.

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