The Cattery

The Cattery

Stupid Folders

17 May 2005
Filed under Design, Mac, Technology, Text

I'm finding Smart Folders in the Tiger Finder not nearly as useful as I thought they'd be. For example, I have a folder on my desktop called 'Recently', and I've assigned it two rules: I want it to contain only folders, and I want those folders to be things I've modified 'Since Yesterday' (which in my language means 'today', but in Apple's seems to mean 'in the last 24 hours'). So far, so good. But because the search includes EVERY folder I've accessed 'since yesterday', even if I haven't accessed it consciously, it brings up all the ridiculous cache folders and icon folders associated with Safari and iCal, and numerous other application-related folders that I could not care one whit for. My search folder is overloaded with things that look like AB7F299F-44BA-4CD5-AB0B-079A27185F04.calendar and 0063006f006d002e00700061006e00690063002e005400 720061006e0073006d0069007400530079006e0063002e 004600610076006f00720069007400650073 (no, I'm not joking - long filenames be damned.) The trouble is that removing these things from the watchful eye of Spotlight could have unintended results - if I'm actually searching for a calendar event, for example, then who's to say that the iCal .calendar folders with stupid numbers aren't crucial to the success of the search?

My lateral approach to the problem is to tell the Smart Folder specifically where to look (my 'Work' folder, my 'Sites' folder and my 'Desktop' folder), but this means being smart on behalf of my Smart Folder and actually not saving files any-old-where, which to be honest is one of the attractions of the Spotlight technology (even if my anally-retentive personality prevents me from actually succumbing to this disorderliness).

I guess what I really want is kind is more flexible conditional searches that allow me to say 'If this and that are true, but not this, then find this, but not this or that' - but Smart Folders really limit one to 'If this and this and this, then do this.'

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