Mac OS X Tiger to feature more powerful search kit
A new version of Apple's Search Kit due to ship with Mac OS X Tiger will reportedly contain several improvements over the version introduced in Mac OS X Panther, including search indexing that is up to three times faster than before.
According to sources, developers writing software for Mac OS X 10.4 Tiger will be able to use several new function calls to achieve search-as-you-type performance within their applications.
Applications that are aware of the new Search Kit will also allow users to search for text contained within a word or combine search patterns to form complex search expressions.
Additionally, the updated Search Kit will provide optional proximity indexing and quoted phrase searching, greater control over indexing and searching options, and an improved search syntax.
Sources say that Tiger developers will be able to displaying their search results with an improved relevance ranking that supports absolute relevance with incremental results. Optionally, developers may choose to use a new unranked search, which sources say will be much faster than the ranked version.
In recent weeks AppleInsider has provided extensive coverage of Mac OS X 10.4 Tiger. Previous reports include coverage of Tiger's Spotlight search, Safari with RSS, Mail 2.0 with smart mailboxes, iCal 1.5.3, Resolution Independent UI and 256x256 Icons, AppleScript 1.10, Installer 2.0, web enabled Help, Fast Logout, Access Control Lists, OpenGL enhancements, adoption of OpenAL, Core Data, Core Audio improvements,PDF Kit, SQLite, and networking-related enhancements.
According to sources, developers writing software for Mac OS X 10.4 Tiger will be able to use several new function calls to achieve search-as-you-type performance within their applications.
Applications that are aware of the new Search Kit will also allow users to search for text contained within a word or combine search patterns to form complex search expressions.
Additionally, the updated Search Kit will provide optional proximity indexing and quoted phrase searching, greater control over indexing and searching options, and an improved search syntax.
Sources say that Tiger developers will be able to displaying their search results with an improved relevance ranking that supports absolute relevance with incremental results. Optionally, developers may choose to use a new unranked search, which sources say will be much faster than the ranked version.
In recent weeks AppleInsider has provided extensive coverage of Mac OS X 10.4 Tiger. Previous reports include coverage of Tiger's Spotlight search, Safari with RSS, Mail 2.0 with smart mailboxes, iCal 1.5.3, Resolution Independent UI and 256x256 Icons, AppleScript 1.10, Installer 2.0, web enabled Help, Fast Logout, Access Control Lists, OpenGL enhancements, adoption of OpenAL, Core Data, Core Audio improvements,PDF Kit, SQLite, and networking-related enhancements.
Comments
Originally posted by hmurchison
In what scenarious would you use Search Kit over Spotlight? Or do the two work hand in hand with each other?
if i'm reading this correctly, search kit is a developer level tool, whereas spotlight works on the file system itself (outside of the applications). but there certainly could be some overlap. an example might be itunes' ability to whittle down the selected library or playlist as you increase search terms. spotlight wouldn't do this, search kit would. whereas if you are searching for something system-wide from the finder, spotlight is the answer (and here might be some of that overlap, as spotlight could also look through your itunes library from a system level).
basically, if i am understanding this correctly, if you are a developer, you can embed an itunes-searching-like tool inside your app without reinventng the wheel.
now couple this with, say, dashboard widget creation and automator, and, well, you're putting some pretty scary-level power in the hands of folks to make some nice applications.
Yeah you're right. I see the difference now. I absolutely LOVE the "Seach as you type". I'm using Opera and it does that on my bookmarks and I don't want to be without this feature ever again. I still keep my bookmarks organized but simply typing in say "app" pulls up apple.com, appleinsider.com faster than clicking through the hierarchy. I'm going to harass Omni until they add this to Omniweb bookmarks(I'm not sure if it does this already).
Originally posted by sjk
DEVONthink has search-as-you-type capability. Nowadays I'm saving more bookmarks (links) in DT than browsers.
Just how are you saving bookmarks in DT? (I have had it for a long time, but just never got around to actually using it.)
Originally posted by RBR
Just how are you saving bookmarks in DT?
Different ways:
* Drag/drop links to DEVONthink groups.
* Cmd-L [Open Location] in Safari to highlight the current page link in the address bar, followed by Cmd-( [Take Plain Note] to run the DEVONthink service.
* Copy link to clipboard, then use "New With Clipboard" from DT's Dock menu to select the destination group.
The last two methods use part of the URL as the item name in the database. How I change the name and its group depends on the item and context.
More often than saving links I capture HTML directly to the database. Sometimes I'll convert that to RTF then edit it to remove parts I'm not interested in. Or I'll highlight something on a page and use the "Take Rich Note" service to add it to the database.
In DT Pro (currently in alpha) the "Add page from Safari" AppleScript works well for capturing pages and setting item name to the page title.
There are all sorts of ways to get different content into DEVONthink such as PDF Services, Folder Actions, droplets, and other things that slip my mind right now. Links ("bookmarks") are just a small subset.
Originally posted by sjk
There are all sorts of ways to get different content into DEVONthink such as PDF Services, Folder Actions, droplets, and other things that slip my mind right now. Links ("bookmarks") are just a small subset.
SJK,
Thanks, I need to spend some time getting to learn Devonthink. I have been using a simple "filing cabinet" to save things to that depends upon my having subject matter folders/subfolders to find things...it has gotten quite large which I suppose is one of the reasons I have not yet gotten very far into Devonthink as I seem to recall there was a size limit in the early versions. I am not sure if that is still the case.
Cheers
Make sure you're running the current version of DEVONthink PE, and the next update (probably out within a month) will be worthwhile. If it becomes a serious tool for you then you'd want to consider upgrading to the upcoming Pro version for its additional capabilities
Even though DEVONthink databases use a hierarchical document/group structure they've been more powerful, flexible, and convenient for me than organizing and managing traditional file/folder hierarchies with Finder. I care less about the location of many items in DEVONthink because it's easy enough to find them, which is a lot like a promise of Spotlight in Tiger. Sort of how I don't much care about where my audio files are as long as I'm able to effectively manage them with iTunes.
More to the topic of this thread, Difference between Tiger Spotlight and Devonthink may be of interest. I posted a link there to an Ars Technica discussion where some of the comments are similar to my vision for moving beyond the tedious and imposing limitations of file/folder-structured data organization... uhh, something like that.
Mac OS X Tiger to feature more powerful search kit
wow an os upgrade that makes something BETTER? how verry un-Microsoft...
Originally posted by sjk
The DEVONtechnologies User Forum is a great resource for discussing issues you have with DEVON's products.
Make sure you're running the current version of DEVONthink PE, and the next update (probably out within a month) will be worthwhile. If it becomes a serious tool for you then you'd want to consider upgrading to the upcoming Pro version for its additional capabilities
Even though DEVONthink databases use a hierarchical document/group structure they've been more powerful, flexible, and convenient for me than organizing and managing traditional file/folder hierarchies with Finder. I care less about the location of many items in DEVONthink because it's easy enough to find them, which is a lot like a promise of Spotlight in Tiger. Sort of how I don't much care about where my audio files are as long as I'm able to effectively manage them with iTunes.
More to the topic of this thread, Difference between Tiger Spotlight and Devonthink may be of interest. I posted a link there to an Ars Technica discussion where some of the comments are similar to my vision for moving beyond the tedious and imposing limitations of file/folder-structured data organization... uhh, something like that.
Thanks for the interesting link to the Ars Technica discussion.
I looked at the comparison chart for Devonthink PE vs. Pro and it looks as though the additional features will be quite useful.
What browser are you using with Devonthink? I have been guilty of trying too many browsers I think. It seems like one or the other has some interesting feature or one doesn't like some site or other, but I will need to settle in on one that works best with Devonthink.
Cheers!