Opportunities Spotlight, which is useful to know

Quickly find the file, which is not known where on the disk - not such a simple task. For a long time the search application works pretty clumsy. Users to run search and sat in front of a computer screen, waiting for the results appear.

In 2004, Apple introduced the system program Spotlight, where the principle of operation was different. The program once indexed disk, and then keeps track of every file change. This constant observation allowed to search instant.

Apple has made another useful thing. Posted Spotlight icon in the menu bar. As a result, search is available anytime, anywhere, with a single click. Spotlight began to be used not only to search for files on and to launch applications.

Below are a few useful features:
Use Boolean operators to refine your search. Starting with version Leopard, Spotlight search support using three operators: AND ( «and»; for example, on-demand, "Ivan AND Maria" you will get the documents that contain both names), OR ( «or»), NOT ( «no»; on request "Mary AND Ivan," you will get all documents that contain references to Mary and not to mention Ivan) in them.

use QuickLook. One of the novelties Lion - it QuickLook support in Spotlight results. You can hover over a search result and look found. If it is a letter, you can read the message, the music file - listen to it, a video - see it, etc.

Use Spotlight as a simple calculator. Right in the search form, you can enter an arithmetic expression and the right to get a result.

Use Spotlight as a dictionary. This feature is especially useful if you are connecting to Dictionary.app additional dictionaries. Enter the strange word in the Spotlight, you roll over Look up the line and get a translation / interpretation in QuickLook-mode.

Customize the search results. Spotlight searches for almost anything. But not all that is necessary for home users. In the program settings window (System Preferences → Spotlight) You can choose which categories of files do not appear in search results. For example, I disabled the search for fonts. You can also exclude search folders that contain sensitive data.

Use drag-n-drop. Few people know, but in Spotlight search results can be dragged to other applications. More often than not I drag and drop files in Pixelmator (no need to switch in the Finder, to find the right picture) and terminal (in this case, the terminal is prescribed path to that file, which is very convenient).

Find out where the file is. Clicking on a search result will open the file. And how do you know where he is? There are two ways. You can place the cursor the result, press command-option and see the path to the file. The second option - press command-return.

Spotlight - one of the reasons to love OS X. Do you know any tricks or tips? Share them in the comments.