Spotlight/UTI Conflict or: Still Useless
Awhile ago I wrote this regarding Spotlight:
The other thing that's helped me understand the usefulness of Spotlight is actually coming up with a reason for using it. Initially I had no real need for it, or at least I didn't think I did. But the other day I was looking for something in a script that did a particular something or other. Problem was I had no idea what script I had put that something-or-other line in. So I'm looking through nested folder upon nested folder, trying to decipher my own script names, and realizing that it was all futile because I had no idea what the script was about, only that it had a line in it that used such-and-such a command. And that's when it hit me: how great would it be if I could search inside my scripts? And then it hit me again: Spotlight!
I also wrote a brief rant about Tiger's new UTIs and how they screw up my scripting workflow:
Tiger, as in many of my other workflows, has made fundamental changes to the operating system that break the original functionality to some degree, and thus break my workflow. In Tiger, text files with the .command suffix open in Terminal, but so do ones with the .sh suffix. If I change the "Open With..." application for .sh to TextEdit, using "Get Info" and apply the "Change All" option, files with the .command get changed too, though the ensuing warning message still (erroneously) states that the change will only affect files with the .sh suffix. So for some reason, Tiger is now associating .sh and .command files with the same application type -- essentially seeing them as the same types of files, which, in a way, they are. But Panther didn't do this, Panther allowed me to specify which apps opened certain types of files based on their suffix.
Today in another cruel twist of fate, the promise of Spotlight and the annoyances of UTIs collided, merged, and then mutated into one horribly disfigured total and utter lack of functionality. Not only are the UTIs for the .command and .sh suffixes hard-coded to one and only one application at a time, but Spotlight treats them differently than regular text files as well. In fact, Spotlight does not index the content of files with the .sh or .command suffixes. That's right. The one area where Spotlight could really prove its usefulness to me is one of the many areas it doesn't work as one might hope. I can't search inside any of my scripts -- the one place I could really see myself wanting to search by content -- because, like a good boy, I named all my scripts with either the .sh or the .command suffix.
I'll say it again, this use of UTIs, which are allegedly supposed to alleviate file suffix dependence, has actually stolen a very useful feature away from the user. Namely, the ability to have two files that are identical in content open in different applications based on some property other than content -- in this case, the file suffix. This was a great thing to be able to do, and, conversely, it sucks to not be able to do it. So I don't get it. What's the advantage? And not to developers, what's the advantage to the user? From my point of view, I just lost functionality, and the only way to get it back is to rename all my scripts with a file suffix that Apple has now taken full control of. I'm locked in. I have fewer choices and less control. And I'm more dependent on file suffixes than ever.
Actually, the file suffix thing is still around. File suffixes still determine the UTI to which the file belongs. So they still do the same thing. It's just that now they're more limited because of the hard-coded and seemingly arbitrary groupings imposed by Apple's implmentation of UTIs. Am I missing something? This is worse, not better.
Until someone can show me otherwise, I have to say that UTIs are bad.
Or at best, badly implemented.
The other thing that's helped me understand the usefulness of Spotlight is actually coming up with a reason for using it. Initially I had no real need for it, or at least I didn't think I did. But the other day I was looking for something in a script that did a particular something or other. Problem was I had no idea what script I had put that something-or-other line in. So I'm looking through nested folder upon nested folder, trying to decipher my own script names, and realizing that it was all futile because I had no idea what the script was about, only that it had a line in it that used such-and-such a command. And that's when it hit me: how great would it be if I could search inside my scripts? And then it hit me again: Spotlight!
I also wrote a brief rant about Tiger's new UTIs and how they screw up my scripting workflow:
Tiger, as in many of my other workflows, has made fundamental changes to the operating system that break the original functionality to some degree, and thus break my workflow. In Tiger, text files with the .command suffix open in Terminal, but so do ones with the .sh suffix. If I change the "Open With..." application for .sh to TextEdit, using "Get Info" and apply the "Change All" option, files with the .command get changed too, though the ensuing warning message still (erroneously) states that the change will only affect files with the .sh suffix. So for some reason, Tiger is now associating .sh and .command files with the same application type -- essentially seeing them as the same types of files, which, in a way, they are. But Panther didn't do this, Panther allowed me to specify which apps opened certain types of files based on their suffix.
Today in another cruel twist of fate, the promise of Spotlight and the annoyances of UTIs collided, merged, and then mutated into one horribly disfigured total and utter lack of functionality. Not only are the UTIs for the .command and .sh suffixes hard-coded to one and only one application at a time, but Spotlight treats them differently than regular text files as well. In fact, Spotlight does not index the content of files with the .sh or .command suffixes. That's right. The one area where Spotlight could really prove its usefulness to me is one of the many areas it doesn't work as one might hope. I can't search inside any of my scripts -- the one place I could really see myself wanting to search by content -- because, like a good boy, I named all my scripts with either the .sh or the .command suffix.
I'll say it again, this use of UTIs, which are allegedly supposed to alleviate file suffix dependence, has actually stolen a very useful feature away from the user. Namely, the ability to have two files that are identical in content open in different applications based on some property other than content -- in this case, the file suffix. This was a great thing to be able to do, and, conversely, it sucks to not be able to do it. So I don't get it. What's the advantage? And not to developers, what's the advantage to the user? From my point of view, I just lost functionality, and the only way to get it back is to rename all my scripts with a file suffix that Apple has now taken full control of. I'm locked in. I have fewer choices and less control. And I'm more dependent on file suffixes than ever.
Actually, the file suffix thing is still around. File suffixes still determine the UTI to which the file belongs. So they still do the same thing. It's just that now they're more limited because of the hard-coded and seemingly arbitrary groupings imposed by Apple's implmentation of UTIs. Am I missing something? This is worse, not better.
Until someone can show me otherwise, I have to say that UTIs are bad.
Or at best, badly implemented.
This entry was posted
on Thursday, July 07, 2005 at 5:41 PM.
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