10.5: Add conditional Spotlight parameters to searches

Oct 29, '07 07:30:08AM

Contributed by: Flux Harmonic

In a Spotlight search window, you can add exclusionary search parameters by holding down the Option key while clicking the add button. It changes the icon from a plus sign to three dots, and adds a line to the search query with a conditional pull-down menu, where you can select Any, All, or None. Nested below that is a standard search line. These conditional parameters can even be nested into each other. This is basically a GUI alternative to using boolean expressions in the Spotlight text search field.

This is how the Today, Yesterday, and Past Week searches that appear in the Finder's sidebar are built. They search first by time, then use a conditional line to exclude folders, presumably since folders aren't actual content but merely a way of organizing content.

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