Apple provides technical details of its forthcoming Spotlight technology in a new public developer documentation. Apple Computer on Tuesday published to its developer Web site an in-depth technical document on its forthcoming meta-data driven search technology. The document, titled \"Working with Spotlight,\" covers the Spotlight Store—a file system-level database that holds all of the meta-data attributes about the files, as well as an index of their contents—and provides tips on examining meta-data.
More interesting, however, is a discussion of Spotlight search queries and their presence throughout the next-generation Mac operating system.
\"The ability to create queries, and get a list of files in response to those queries, is what allows Spotlight to transcend the typical behavior of a file system and enables you to build a totally new category of applications,\" the document reads, in part.
\"One of the best ways to find examples of complex queries is to use the Finder. Build a query using the Finder's Find feature and then save it. Then, navigate to the Saved Searches folder in your Home folder. You'll see the saved search as a Smart Folder. Get Info about the folder and you'll see the query nicely listed for you to examine.\"
According to the document, Tiger will also ship with several meta-data importers for a variety of common file formats as well as all the important file formats used by Apple's applications such as iTunes and the Address Book. A partial list of file formats includes: JPEG, PNG, TIFF, and GIF images; MP3 and AAC audio files; QuickTime movies; PDF files; Microsoft Word and Excel documents; iChat transcripts; Email messages; Address Book contacts; and iCal calendar files.
Over this past weekend, Apple provided its developers with the first new build of Tiger since its World Wide Developers Conference in June.
New Apple document details Spotlight search queries
By Katie Marsal