DISQUS

Zakk Forchilli · 1 year ago

I completely agree with you. There are so many things that Tiger had that i just miss. Apple must think they have done it all with Leopard, when they have killed some things!

Zakk Forchilli · 1 year ago

Forgot to mention what i miss. Everything i miss from Tiger is in the interface. It was the perfect interface, and Apple has tried to make it just too cool, and failed i think.

I miss the old dock, the beautiful white menu bar, and sometimes even the brushed metal. My main problem, is that they don't allow you the choices like Windows does! They let you change the interface without 3rd party apps almost substantially.

I wish we had the option to switch back to the old interface just like Windows does. Come on Apple! Who's with me?

David Martorana · 1 year ago

Yeah, I actively searched for that window for a little while. It was light-years better in Tiger. Why would they get rid of such a beautiful interface like that?

djsteen · 1 year ago

I'm getting a new MacBook Pro soon. So far, there isn't really anything I find REALLY giddy about Leopard (Spaces, maybe); I will also miss the same things as Zakk does.

I might just install my copy of Tiger on my new MBP. Hmm..

Oh, and I always search things in Finder. Spotlight has never really fit in my work flow.

Sameer · 1 year ago

I hadn't actually noticed this until now. That probably has to do with the fact that I never click the "Show All." Most of the time what I'm looking for just shows up on the spotlight list. But what if I have to go beyond that? It definitely seems like a downgrade from Tiger.

ChrisClark · 1 year ago

Like Sameer, I hardly ever click "Show All," which is probably why I hadn't noticed this before now. Wow, that's a real downgrade. I like Leopard otherwise though, including the transparent menu bar and the new dock (I realize I'm in the minority here).

Colin Devroe · 1 year ago

So that we're all clear; I really, really like Leopard. I think it is a fantastic upgrade to Mac OS X. The translucent menu bar included! If I recall correctly, this is the first and only gripe I've written about Leopard.

db · 1 year ago

I don't use that Spotlight that often, so I never even noticed the old way in Tiger. And, you are correct, in Leopard it's not nearly as good.

But, it's also not nearly as bad if you switch to cover flow view. It's not the same as tiger, but better than a plain list of files. Combined with QuickView, it's nor horrible at all.

nate beaty · 1 year ago

Much agreed -- the biggest thing I use this for is finding Entourage mail messages at work, and trying to narrow down the full spotlight search to just messages matching a string is an exercise in frustration.

I was really surprised to see this change in Leopard, especially remembering the large segment it got in the Tiger keynote address.

And I'm sorry, but CoverFlow is a sad replacement and useless in this context -- I love browsing my album art like LPs, but I sure don't want to browse my file cabinet in this way! (this one? nope, flip. this one? nope, flip, etc.)

Simon · 1 year ago

I agree wholheartedly - Tiger's spotlight was a world better than Leopard - its so frustrating when Aple mess with something they've already perfected. The speed isn't that mush greater on a Power PC either. I've kept Tiger on one of our machines and it's still more useful to use to search volumes than my main (leopard) computer.

It also annoys me that the previous version of Mail would show how large an email was as you attached files to it - before you sent it. I can't find any way of doing this now! It was very useful for me as I routinely send large files to clients with sometimes 5 or 10MB limits to their mail.

Don · 1 year ago

I am glad to find people who understand what I am talking about with Spotlight in Leopard and the Show All feature. It seems incredibly rediculous that Apple would omit the feature of sorting that was in Tiger. I love Spotlight but hate the interface in Show All. Please let me know if you have contacted Apple with this complaint, how to do it, or if you found a 3rd party software solution to this - thanks!

dj · 1 year ago

@Simon
When you attach large files to a message in the Leopard version of Mail, it shows the total message size in the lower left hand corner of the message.

Oh, and I agree that the change to the "Show All" Spotlight window is a downgrade.

Matt · 1 year ago

Shot in the dark here. Spotlight is just an app in the core services folder in the system folder. What if you just copied the spotlight.app from tiger and put it in Leopard. I have no idea if this would work but i guess that if it doesn't all you have to do is restore the leopard spotlight back to the folder. I'll try this and reply with what happens.

Joe · 1 year ago

I definitely missed the tiger way of spotlighting things. I've pretty much tried to avoid thinking about it or using it since leopard launched so I wouldn't get pissed off. So one of my big quirks is that when I'm using spotlight in the finder it searches my whole computer instead of that folder which makes more sense. Anywho, spotlight adds a little banner below the usual toolbar so you can easily switch from searching your entire mac, to searching the folder you're in. THEN you're left with weeding through all the pointless files to find the type you're actually wanting to see. So you go to that same banner and on the very right click the plus sign. It defaults to kind so just pick what you're looking for and you're set. Or if the defaults don't suit your fancy you can select other and type in a specific kind. You can also just type in the specific kind in your spotlight search. If you don't know what the exact name is for the kind you want just scroll through a spotlight search until you find one and then you'll know. For instance if I'm looking for an entourage 2008 email message it has a kind of vrge08_message so I can just type amazon vrge08 and it will filter everything but my entourage emails! I'd even venture to say it's easier than all the scrolling and collapsing I used to do "the tiger way" so I could see a longer list of the kind I was looking for.

CatFight · 1 year ago

I agree. I'm one of those people that always uses the Spotlight "Show All" window (hardly ever the menu, unless the first item is the correct result). I'm not going to say the Tiger Spotlight window was perfect - it could have done with some improvements, but it's orders of magnitude better than the Leopard Spotlight window (which is basically just the Finder's Find window)... Sure, they didn't really need 2 different windows that do the same thing, but they chose the wrong one to throw away! Searching without the Groups function and only one active sort is just painful!

Greenie · 1 year ago

I'm still using OS 10.3, and will NEVER buy a new Mac until they restore the original Find File that I've been using since the OS 7.5 days (it changed its name to Sherlock 2 for a while in the OS 9 days but it was still just as useful). Spotlight still cannot search network volumes or volumes that haven't been indexed, making it entirely useless for me. It is difficult to describe just how useless Spotlight is to me. I can get more done on a 350MHz G3 iMac than on a quad processor MacPro running Tiger or Leopard. Replacing Find File with Spotlight, without the option to reinstate it, is equivalent to removing my car engine and having me push the car everywhere I need to go. Steve Jobs would no doubt say this system is far better because it saves petrol, makes the car lighter and cheaper and removes all that annoying engine noise. However anybody older than about 4 years of age would realise there's something wrong with that entire picture.

I just bought my first Windows computer. I hate Windows, but it's far more useful than Leopard. Apple removed so many beautiful features over the years that Windows is actually better feature-wise. Networking is more reliable, and surprise surprise, I can actually SEARCH NETWORK FILES, like in OS 7.5! Wow! Amazing. I have never, and will never use any applications beginning with 'i', and rely almost entirely on open-source software for my complex workflow. The ONLY Apple software I used with OS 10.3 was the Finder, with Find File. Now that Find File is gone, there's simply no reason to own a Mac. As soon as Find File is restored with all the original functionality, I'll be buying a brand new Mac. But I can't see that happening any day soon.

Mark · 1 year ago

Sorry to burst your bubble, Greenie, but Leopard has a network search feature built right into Finder. Open any Finder window, type your search term, and click "Shared." Narrow the search by any combination of file type, size, date, content, etc. This network search works for any windows or mac drive on the network, regardless of spotlight indexing.

Nabeel · 1 year ago

thank god i have people who are actually interested in this... i tried setting up a forum on the apple discussion pages (since apple's own employees frequent those pages to help out AND take suggestions) to get everyone on board so that maybe someone important would get a hold of it and maybe change it in the next version of the mac os.... but nobody really seemed to care... that's why i am so happy to have found this posting... i was really beginning to lose all hope... colin, is there any way that we can take this into the next level, like sign an online petition or something??

Greenie · 1 year ago

Mark, as per your comment on August 22nd, have you ever actually tried to do a network file search with Leopard? It's so incredibly slow at searching network volumes that it's actually faster for me to physically walk to the computer downstairs and find the file on it, copy it to a USB key then walk back upstairs than it is to find filenames or dates with Leopard's Spotlight window. Maybe it's faster if both machines are running Leopard, but in the real world not every machine runs Leopard and many of us have to also deal with Linux servers, Windows servers and NTFS hard drives, which cannot be Spotlight indexed.

A network 'search for file by date' search that takes 13 seconds on my 10.3 machine takes over 4 minutes with Leopard and often crashes or simply sits there with a spinning circle indicating something is happening, but no results show up. When it does sort-of work, I might get 24 results with 10.3, but only 14 results on Leopard. I've tried this in numerous networks with the latest of the latest hardware, older hardware and some very old hardware. The simple fact is: A 350MHz iMac with 10.3 is MUCH FASTER and more reliable at searching for files than a quad processor MacPro. If you can prove me wrong, I'll be happy. This is a case where I'd love to get magic fix-all answer and admit I was wrong. But unfortunately nobody's been able to prove me wrong yet. I've asked a LOT of people and put my results on a lot of message boards, yet nobody has an answer.

10.3's Finder windows also have a box at the top right so I can search for files inside that window. It's fantastic, narrowing down search results in a fraction of a second. Until somebody writes a proper Find File replacement I will never be able to use a new Mac to get real work done. It's simply impossible. I currently use 10.3 on an old 450MHz PowerMac to do network searches and data recovery from damaged hard drives. Would love to upgrade it to something faster, but if Spotlight cannot index a damaged hard drive then it cannot search it. Period.

Nabeel, I've tried setting up discussions about this on Apple's discussion boards but they are usually deleted within a few hours. Apple are censoring people who don't agree with their views. Hundreds of people have written to Spotlight boards asking along the lines of 'Why can't I search for files like I could in OS 9?' but you'll notice every one of those questions is marked 'Not Answered...' or they get stupid responses like 'Use EasyFind' which is one of the slowest, least Mac-like and unstable applications ever, and can ONLY search for file NAMES, not dates or any other information. PathFinder just doesn't cut it either.

Have a look at this website, it may scare you to know that Spotlight doesn't always reveal every file you want to find:
http://cocoacafe.wordpress.com/2007/06/17/fscat...

Nabeel I hope you and I can find a solution, then I can go back to using and loving my Mac. I've seriously considered paying somebody to write a replacement Find File application, but I can't find an interested Mac programmer in Sydney. All the programmers I know use the command line so they have no issues with Spotlight, because they turn it off immediately and ignore it!

Pierre · 1 year ago

"Mark, as per your comment on August 22nd, have you ever actually tried to do a network file search with Leopard?"

Sorry Greenie, but now you're changing your tune. You claimed Leopard couldn't search network volumes - which is blatantly wrong - and since that was debunked now you're gripe is how fast it performs. There goes your credibility.

Anyways, I wholeheartedly agree re: the old Tiger spotlight search window. I have been searching for a 'fix' for this. I was actually hoping a bit of console wizardry would bring it back for me in Leopard but I guess this is too good to be true ;)

Sienela · 1 year ago

I am going crazy with this finder window as well. Strange thing is that when I had the black macbook running leopard, all was great. Now I got MacBook Air running Leopard 10.5.5 and I can't find anything. I realize that one issue is that the finder I currently have on my macbook air doesn't look in folders within other folders - no idea how to fix it but I am very frustrated.

Winston Salser · 1 year ago

I am still using Tiger, so don't have to worry about Leopard, BUT I have a big problem with Spotlight in Tiger: When I open up a search in the search window the display is unstable, constantly jumping up and down as Spotlight rearranges the order of the entries, or whatever. whole groups of entries disappear and then may come back, and of course I don't know whether they were moved to somewhere else in the display (if there are, say, 2000 entries in the display).

Anyway, as I scroll down through the display, and in another window locate and inspect files, the spotlight display, because it is jumping around, loses my place in the list. Working with this feels like trying to put a tattoo on an acrobat during the performance, and it really ruins it for me.

I guess that the main problem is that, if I move the slider down ferom the top and highlight a paeticulaqr file, within a few seconds the slider goes back to the beginning of the file and I have completely lost my place, and don't know how fqr I had searched down already when I want to continue scanning the files fond using my search criteria.
Admittedly, I may often have a search returning several thousand results, but, as they are arranged by file type and then by date, I could search them efficiently if the cursor did not keep flying up to the top. I have tried to avoid this by the primative method of keeping my finger on the mouse button (selecting the slider continuously rather than only when I am moving it) and this is a little better but not much.

I have a 5 gigabyte Pioneer hard disk, partitioned into 5 volumes, ranging from 40 megabytes to 155 megabytes in size, and I have wondered whether the problem arises from the large number of files on my computer, but see no way to test this. Most of my volumes are over half full, so i have a lot of material on the computer (which, by the way, you might need to know is a G5 tower, in case that makes a difference. But I also have this problem running on my wife's G4 tower. I think it does not happen on my G5 dual processor Laptop, but I don't use it very much.

Does the spotlight indexing system have limitations on the amount of material it can manage?

Has anyone else had this problem? I don't even find anyone reporting this problem, let alone anyone who has a solution, so it is lonely out here. I had thought that maybe I should upgrade to leopard in the hope that this problem might go away, but the entries on this website give me no encouragement that I should have anything to do with Leopard if spotlight is my main problem.

dog · 1 year ago

enable cover flow. you'll get a preview of all the files.

Justin · 1 year ago

I echo many people's relief at finally finding this site and a coherent articulation of why Leopard's Spotlight sucks. I'm curious if anything has happened with this, as with others. This seems like something that could potentially in the realm of Onyx or the other mac customization tools (like a "revert to 10.4 spotlight" thing). I'm actually curious how Matt's June 26th '08 suggestion turned out: copying the 10.4 spotlight app to a 10.5 install. Any word?

Craig · 12 months ago

There is a solution to the Leopard Spotlight deficiency.

Click on "Show all" as always. In the upper right-hand corner of the window that opens, below the search box and to the right of the save button, hit the plus (+) button. There you see the option "Kind is Any." Choose the option under "Any" if it appears. If it doesn't appear, chose "other" and type in anything you want such as, for example, "mail" or "microsoft." It's not as nice as Tiger, but it works.

Ben · 11 months ago

Why doesn't some developer just write an application for us that does this? I would try myself but I am not experienced writing mac applications.

Greenie · 11 months ago

To Pierre: "You claimed Leopard couldn’t search network volumes - which is blatantly wrong - and since that was debunked now you’re gripe is how fast it performs. There goes your credibility."

Try reading my post again. It cannot search RELIABLY - If something gives me unreliable, inconsistent answers then it doesn't work. 10.3 Find File is FAST and always gives me the same results. Spotlight searches take a few minutes and give different answers each time. I'm searching very large hard drives here with hundreds of thousands of files. I can do a reliable, fast network search which takes 35 seconds with my old LC475 running System 7.5, but with Spotlight the same search takes 6 minutes, ignores some of the files, and sometimes it just sits and spins its indicator without finding anything.

If Spotlight's searches were as pedantic as you are, I'd have no problem with it. But if I do a network search three times, sometimes I get 16 results, sometimes 60 results, somtimes 43 results. It's impossible to predict. However with OS 10.3 I always get rock-solid results.

My plumber told me he could fix the waterproofing in my bathroom, but after he re-did the job three times it still leaked. In my books, that means he CAN'T fix it, even though he said he could. Just because something says it works doesn't mean it works. If it doesn't work as advertised then it doesn't work, period.

Have a look at this website detailing how Spotlight works (or doesn't work):
http://cocoacafe.wordpress.com/2007/06/17/fscat...
It's quite scary knowing it ignores results without telling you.

I'm sick of being Apple's beta-tester. Spotlight is broken, and I just moved to Vindows Vista because it works better, ditching 21 years of Mac loyalty. 90% of the planet use Windows so it's not all bad. Half my software is open-source so the change isn't as drastic as I previously feared, and my network searches are now reliable again.