10.4: Use Spotlight to identify a program's purpose

Dec 21, '06 07:30:02AM

Contributed by: Anonymous

Application names frequently don't reflect the actual task that they perform. The name Safari, for instance, really doesn't have much relation to web browsing after all. If you download lots of shareware applications, the situation is even worse, with application names often being obscure or jokey. As an example, I recently found a great address label printing application, but now I can't find it again because I can't remember what the heck it was called ! I know it's in my Applications folder, but I just can't seem to find it.

Well, there's an easy way to keep track of what task applications perform. Use Get Info in the Finder on the application in question, and in the Spotlight comments section, type a few descriptive words about what that application does. In the example above, I'd probably type address labels.

Now, next time you want to find an application that does a specific task, just use Spotlight to search for the keywords associated with that task. The applications that match will be found and displayed in the Applications section of the results list. For instance, when I want to print an address label, I just open the spotlight search and type address labels, and there's the list of matching applications.

[robg adds: This hint discussed using Spotlight comments to launch applications more quickly, which is similar in concept to this hint. However, using the comments as a means of identifying what an application does is a good idea. If you use a unique prefix, maybe something like wdtd (what does this do) in the comments box, your Spotlight searches will return only your matching applications, as the odds of finding wdtd in any other file are quite low.]

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