Spotlight on spotlight

From Wired, we read of an intriguing new Mac system tool:
Wired News: Searching for the Perfect OS

In Jobs' scheme, the hierarchy of files and folders is a dreary, outdated metaphor inspired by office filing. In today's communications era, categorized by the daily barrage of new e-mails, websites, pictures and movies, who wants to file when you can simply search? What does it matter where a file is stored, as long as you can find it?

...

Jobs demonstrated Spotlight by finding a place-name reference in a PDF map, which the system had indexed in the background seconds after it had been downloaded from the Net.


As well as indexing the content of files, Spotlight also parses metadata: information about a file's type, size, date and kind, as well as the author, creation date and dozens of other parameters.


To track information as it comes in, the system will enable users to create smart folders that automatically archive new material corresponding to specified search terms.

This is one of the 'hats' I wear in my company, I am the designated 'finder of old files'. When you have a shared network with thousands of folders and subfolders, finding a letter written to Gristede's, for instance, is not as easy as one might think. We shall see how well Spotlight actually works, once OS X "Tiger" gets released.

more from Wired:

Ken Bereskin, Apple's director of Mac OS X product marketing, said Spotlight has been a couple of years in development -- before Panther -- and incorporates several complex system technologies. Bereskin said the system was inspired by the speedy search engine in iTunes, which instantly returns results as soon as the user starts typing: whether the match is in the song's title, album, genre or artist fields.

"We noticed that people just search all the time," he said. "We asked if that could be applied to everything: contacts, calendar, e-mail and the contents of your hard drive."