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Should Spotlight have some sort of Internet integration?


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Should Spotlight have some sort of Internet integration?
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The Return of the 'nut
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Join Date: Dec 2004
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2005-04-25, 17:42

I find it strange that spotlight does not search the internet in anyway. I realize doing so would in some way go beyond Spotlight's intended purpose but at this time nearly everything has internet integration. Would it not be possible for Spotlight to integrate various Google searches into it's results. Say when you type "baseball" into spotlight, amongst all the hits you would get now on your hard drive you'd also get web hits, and image web hits, and maybe maps or something.
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groverat
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Join Date: May 2004
Location: Houston, Texas
 
2005-04-25, 17:45

It's a good idea, but I think it would need to be controlled tightly to keep it all from going insane.

And you know ads would pop up and suddenly the user's entire damned computer would be a piece of adware.
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Luca
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Join Date: May 2004
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2005-04-25, 17:49

It's an interesting thought, but I think it's a bit too far-reaching. You have a finite amount of data on your computer... the internet is, in most cases, a nearly limitless repository of information. I think it would be overwhelming.

However, Spotlight does search your Safari bookmarks. What might be nice is if Spotlight were able to search your internet cache for information. So if I were to do a Spotlight search for "return of the," it would return internet history entries containing your username. Spotlight is for finding stuff you know you already have. I'd put recently viewed web pages (recent enough to be in your history and/or cache) in that category.
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The Return of the 'nut
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2005-04-25, 17:57

well, i suggest it since im really developing a habit of just going to the upper right hand corner to search for anything, find anything, and even open apps. I guess this would begin to approach launchbar status if it could open web pages or search them from there though.

But spotlight seems to be the replacement of sherlock. Sherlock was able to search all the search engines and sort them according to relevance, it was able to find airport info and movie times and trailers. I think Spotlight could easily do the same.

Type a movie name in, it searches your hard drive and the internet, maybe comes back with documents you have of it, a few of the top web hits, a movie trailer, etc. Of course all of this could be optional, or accessed via a disclosure triangle or something

Spotlight could be a lot smarter I think. Maybe for Spotlight 2.0 though.
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julesstoop
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Join Date: Oct 2004
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2005-04-25, 18:49

Please no internet integration.
If I wan't to look for something on the internet: I'll look for it on the internet.

Reason is simple: stuff on my harddisk is there, just a click away: stuff from the internet will often take (considerable) time to download.
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The Return of the 'nut
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2005-04-25, 20:18

Quote:
Originally Posted by julesstoop
Please no internet integration.
If I wan't to look for something on the internet: I'll look for it on the internet.

Reason is simple: stuff on my harddisk is there, just a click away: stuff from the internet will often take (considerable) time to download.
maybe for you. the internet for me and an increasing number of people has become almost as instant as the stuff on your computer. you don't design to the lowest common denominator
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sunrain
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Join Date: Jun 2004
Location: Portlandia
 
2005-04-25, 20:28

I think it could work and I like Luca's idea about including cache information in Spotlight searches. Maybe there could be an "expand to include internet searches" button in the next rev?

"What a computer is to me is it's the most remarkable tool that we've ever come up with, and it's the equivalent of a bicycle for our minds."
- Steve Jobs
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BlueRabbit
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Join Date: May 2004
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2005-04-25, 23:32

Quote:
Originally Posted by The Return of the 'nut
maybe for you. the internet for me and an increasing number of people has become almost as instant as the stuff on your computer. you don't design to the lowest common denominator
Well, there are lots of times when you could have a slow network connection, even though it's fast the rest of the time. For example, if my PB is on the outer edge of a wireless network, it can get really really slow. What would be nice is an option to turn internet searches on and off, and perhaps a way to automatically do so based on the connection type/network speed. That way, it isn't restricted by the "lowest common denominator", but is still available to people on broadband.
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Brad
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Join Date: May 2004
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2005-04-26, 00:32

Quote:
Originally Posted by The Return of the 'nut
maybe for you. the internet for me and an increasing number of people has become almost as instant as the stuff on your computer. you don't design to the lowest common denominator
True. Apple has shown this time and again with .Mac and iDisk integration. Heck, even on good broadband connections iDisk can be painfully slow. I guess Apple expects everyone to be on a direct LAN line to their servers.

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julesstoop
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2005-04-26, 02:26

Quote:
Originally Posted by The Return of the 'nut
maybe for you. the internet for me and an increasing number of people has become almost as instant as the stuff on your computer. you don't design to the lowest common denominator
I'm by no means the lowest common denominator. I would say I'm pretty close to having a reasonably fast internet connection (2 Mbit down, 1 Mbit up) Still I run in to slow file transfers quite often. And while this isn't true for stuff downloaded from places like apple.com, or any company that has a lot of bandwith, it is a fact of life for many other sites and even more so for p2p transfers.
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scratt
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2005-04-26, 03:28

Aren't we all forgetting here that Spotlight is only as fast as it is because it pre-caches all the info on your computer...

Isn't there something about it spending the first few hours indexing your computer, so searches will be slower until that is done...

As Luca says, with an almost limitless search area (if you include the inet) then pre-caching would be impossible. Look at how long it takes Google to *really* update it's info, rather than just check *important* sites and appear to be truly globally 'indexing'.

We have Google integrated in Safari..

We could have an internet search integrated in the Finder, or in Spotlight, as an option... But I for one would leave it turned off..

The advantage of Spotlight is managing your own data, not the rest of the worlds!!

'Remember, measure life by the moments that take your breath away, not by how many breaths you take'
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sunrain
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Join Date: Jun 2004
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2005-04-26, 03:42

Quote:
Originally Posted by scratt
Look at how long it takes Google to *really* update it's info, rather than just check *important* sites and appear to be truly globally 'indexing'.
Not to get sidetracked, but I've found that google does a pretty good job keeping up on the indexing of my relatively insignificant site. Not good enough for what we're talking about, but still. I still think that a "expand search to internet" button/option would satisfy what applenut is talking about.

"What a computer is to me is it's the most remarkable tool that we've ever come up with, and it's the equivalent of a bicycle for our minds."
- Steve Jobs
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scratt
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2005-04-26, 03:53

He He.. Not to get sidetracked either but Google can take up to a week or more to get up to date site info into it's cache... You sometimes get totally different pages being listed than actually come up when you click through...

Agreed, expand search to internet could be added... But I still don't think that is what 'spotlight' is about. I think the name itself could be taken to be rather introspective.

It is about indexing your data.

'Remember, measure life by the moments that take your breath away, not by how many breaths you take'
Extreme Sports Cafe | ESC's blog | scratt's blog | @thescratt
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