One of the major new features of OS X 10.4 is Spotlight , Apple ’s new arrangement - wide “ chance everything ” search system . In addition to its documented power to dig out the proverbial acerate leaf within a rick ( a file ) , Spotlight can also bump ( and hence open ) applications on your drive with but a few keystrokes . Want to launch a reasonably buried app like Disk Utility ? Hit Command - Space then type
While this seems quite useful , especially for deeply - swallow applications , the “ wait a chip ” portion of the process can get previous cursorily — on larger drive , “ a bit ” may be several seconds , during which time you ’re watch out Spotlight spit out outcome that are n’t quite the one you ’re await for .
Enter the third - political party launchers . While there are a number of catapult apps out there , in all probability the three best - acknowledge programs areLaunchBar($19.95 shareware),Butler($18 donationware ) , andQuicksilver(presently free ) . These political program are designed to help set up programme ( and undefended documents ) , and they all lick in a similar personal manner : type a keyboard shortcut , put down a few letter of the programme ( or document ) name , and ( in most cases ) just press Return to start the highlighted item ( or use the mouse keys to choose it from a leaning of results ) . Unlike Spotlight , these searches happen basically instantly — so much so that you ’ll probably see the matching program in less than a s .
What they do n’t do as well as Spotlight , however , is look inside files for bits of data — some of them do n’t do this at all , while others have a limited ability to do so . In an idealistic world then , you ’d use spot to research for information , and one of the launchers to open file and documents .
gratefully , in this case , the world is well-nigh ideal , as you may set up both Spotlight and your launcher program to play to their strengths . The first thing to do is to tell Spotlight not to look for software . enter the Spotlight System Preferences panel and verify the Search issue tab is combat-ready , then uncheck the boxes next to both Applications ( and System Preferences as well — the three primary launcher handle these as well ) . Since the rocket launcher apps will handle these tasks with repose , there ’s no need to have Spotlight do the work .
That ’s really all you need to do ; Spotlight will no longer search for program or organisation preference ’ panels , and you should see an addition in its carrying out when using it for other searches . If you wish to , however , you could customize your launcher of choice to tell it not to see for things that you ’ll be using Spotlight to detect — Address Book entries , perhaps .
To customize Butler , select Butler : Customize from its menubar icon , and then uncheck anything you do n’t care to match in the Filer section on the right . To modify Quicksilver , select Preferences from its Dock pop - up carte , then select Catalog . Uncheck the box seat next to any particular you wish to exclude from Quicksilver ’s domain . To customize LaunchBar , first set off the program ( get through its dock icon ) , then select Configuration : Open Configuration and you ’ll see a window that allows you to enable and disable as many things as you wish , at either the group ( “ Indexing Rules ” ) or item ( the Index tab key with a chemical group choose ) level .
By letting Spotlight centre on what it ’s beneficial at , and using a rocket launcher to open your document and app , you ’ll be have the good of both world .
[ Note : I update this web log entry after its initial notice to add together data on customise Butler . Thanks to Gaston Gosselin for indite in with that information . ]
