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10.4: Configure Spotlight to index excluded directories System 10.4
Tiger only hintBy default, Spotlight excludes many hidden, System, and developer directories from the metadata index for simplicity and ease of use by the majority of users. These exclusions include things like hidden UNIX directories and ADC Reference Documentation. It would be very helpful for some users to have some of these excluded areas available for Spotlight searching. While mdimport -f will allow you to manually force Spotlight to add a directory to its index, many of Spotlight's command-line tools make references to filter rules. I wondered where these rules might be kept, and how they might be altered.

I was hoping there would be a text-based configuration file somewhere, but this appeared at first glance to not be the case. It turns out the excluded directories are hardcoded into Spotlight's mds binary, located in /System: Library: Frameworks: CoreServices.framework: Versions: A: Frameworks: Metadata.framework: Versions: A: Support: mds. You can do a strings on the above binary to see them -- or here's the full list of excluded directories.

However, while looking in the .Spotlight-V100 directory at the root of the drive, I found a file called _rules.plist, which can be used to tweak the exclusions.
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10.4: View some interesting definitions in the Dictionary System 10.4
Tiger only hintTyping "jobs" and "wozniak" in the Dictionary application or widget utility will bring up some obvious definitions of these words. You even get the correct pronunciation.

[robg adds: There seem to be a ton of names in the dictionary; gates works, too. So does Schiller, but it probably doesn't return the individual you might be thinking of. What's odd is the behavior of these alternative defintions. Say you have a sentence like this:

"The gates of the old mansion slowly creaked open."

If you control-click on gates and choose Look Up in Dictionary, you'll get Bill Gates' entry. The same thing happens with the word jobs in a sentence -- you'll see Steve's entry. The only way to get the "true" definitions of these words is to enter them in the search box of the Dictionary application directly. If you do that and wait, you'll see all the possible defintions. Even stranger, though, if you just type the word and hit Enter, you'll get the 'real' definition by default.]
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10.4: Remove yellow from the Print Supplies button System 10.4
Tiger only hintOne of the most annoying "features" of 10.4 is the new Supplies button in the Print dialog that spams the user to buy ink from Apple. When the system detects diminishing supplies, it highlights the button an eye-catching yellow, as seen at right. This hint disables the yellow highlighting, leaving the functionality intact, but giving the user a more peaceful experience.

Note that this hint mucks about with a system framework, thus follow at your own risk.

In the terminal, enter
$ cd /System/Library/Frameworks/Carbon.framework/Frameworks/Print.framework/
Versions/Current/Plugins/PrintingCocoaPDEs.bundle/Contents/Resources/English.lproj
$ sudo mv YellowPushBtn_Normal.tiff YellowPushBtn_Normal.tiff_
$ sudo mv YellowPushBtn_Pressed.tiff YellowPushBtn_Pressed.tiff_
By adding the underscores, the system won't be able to find the yellow versions, and the normal button will remain. Replace English.lproj with your localization, and enjoy a slightly less intrusive Print dialog. You can copy the files back to their original names if you want to restore the default behavior.

[robg adds: I haven't noticed this button yet; it seems neither of my printers report their status. So I added the screenshot of the button just so you can see how really bright it is...]
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10.4: Edit PDF actions in the Print dialog System 10.4
Tiger only hintWhen you print in 10.4, there's an updated PDF pop-down menu from which you can pick certain actions.

These actions are merely Automator workflows in the /Library/PDF Services folder. You can change these, or make your own very easily. You can even make your own Automator workflow, and save it wherever you want, and add it via the "Edit this Menu" option in the PDF pop-down button menu.
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10.4: Improve Spotlight's search speed System 10.4
Tiger only hintIf you are using Spotlight as a Finder search replacement, you've seen that is fast, but not fast enough. To optimize Spotlight search times, I've tried to renice the process that's behind the searches. Looking at the CPU usage in the Terminal (via top -o cpu) during searches, I've seen that a process named mds is the one that does it all. Using an AppleScript to renice the mds process, we can cut research times even at half.

Here's the script:
tell application "Terminal"
  do shell script ¬
   "sudo renice -20 -p `ps -axww | grep '[/]mds'| awk '{print $1}'`"
  quit "terminal"
end tell
Save the script as an application, and using the Login Items tab of the Accounts System Preferences panel, list it as a startup file. Now you have to logout and re-login. You'll se a Terminal window appear and disappear soon after. To check if the renice command has been successful, you can open the Terminal and type:
ps -axww -l nice | grep '[/]mds'
and check if the sixth field is -20.

[robg adds: I'm running this mainly to see what others' experiences are with it. I tried it, and I must admit, I don't really see any increase in the speed of Spotlight's results (which is another of my pet peeves with it -- for a supposedly indexed system, it's astonishingly slow at what seems like simple stuff). The rest of this hint details how to allow the renice process to run via sudo without requiring a password. I personally wouldn't do that, as I much prefer the minor inconvenience of typing the password. However, it's here in the interest of completeness...]
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10.4: Fix a Spotlight/International keyboard shortcut issue System 10.4
Tiger only hintSpotlight is a great new addition to OS X, but if you use alternative input languages toggling with Command-Space, you'll run into trouble.

If you go into the Keyboard Shortcuts tab of the Keyboard and Mouse System Preferences panel, you will notice that Command-Space is assigned to both Spotlight and alternate text input. However, changing it here will not permanently keep your new key commands. The way to fix this is to go into the Spotlight pane under System Preferences, and you'll see a checkbox for Spotlight keyboard shortcut. Change that to whatever suits you, and now you should have no problems.

It's not the best hint, but I think it'll save some of us some time who are new to Tiger.
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10.4: Permanently enable Quartz 2D Extreme System 10.4
Tiger only hintTiger includes a major new graphics technology called Quartz 2D Extreme. Note that this is not the same as Quartz Extreme! Unfortunately, Apple has chosen not to enable this feature by default. It is possible to enable it temporarily via a menu option using the Quartz Debug application included with the Developer Tools. In order to enable it permanently, we have to do a little more work.

One way is to force quit the Quartz Debug application after you have enabled Quartz 2D Extreme from the menu -- quitting normally will disable it again. It is also possible to edit the plist file that controls this feature directly. This file is located in /Library/Preferences, and it's named com.apple.windowserver.plist. Change the Quartz2DExtremeEnabled value to YES. Both of these methods keep Quartz 2D Extreme enabled across reboots.

For more info on Quartz 2D Extreme, see these articles: [robg adds: The ArsTechnica review goes into great detail on Quartz 2D Extreme (and nearly every other element of OS X 10.4; it's a great review), and explains what it should do, what apps must do to take advantage of it, and more. I'm assuming that if it shipped disabled by default on all machines, there was some sort of reason for that, so I've chosen to leave it off. I did experiment with it, but didn't notice any really dramatic differences in performance. Note that, at least according to the MacNN forums thread linked above, you'll need 512MB of system RAM, as well as a newer video card for this to work.]
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10.4: Add a new Mail account without using the wizard System 10.4
Tiger only hintIf you want to add a new Mail.app account without using Apple's wizard, here's the trick...

Press and hold the Option key on the keyboard, then click the '+' button at the lower left of the Accounts preferences section. This will add a new blank account, and you can directly complete the empty fields on the right side of the preferences panel.

Enjoy!
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10.4: View full-screen PDFs without the onscreen menu System 10.4
Tiger only hintIn 10.4's Preview.app, if you want to view a multi-page PDF in full screen mode, you have to select View: Slideshow. The problem with this is that if you want to use your Forward and Reverse arrows to cycle through the pages, you get a toolbar (of sorts) at the bottom.

To remove the toolbar, just click anywhere. Now you can use your keyboard to navigate. To get it back, just move the mouse. Because it comes back when you move the mouse, you may want to move the mouse out of the PDF area first..

An additional hint: you will want to click on the icon in the middle (between the separators) to make the PDF full screen before you hide the menu..
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10.4: More expressive saved searches System 10.4
Tiger only hintI wanted to create a saved search (aka smart folder) of all papers -- PDF and Postscript -- I've downloaded in the last week. Unfortunately, the saved search functionality provided by the Finder didn't seem powerful enough to express this search: I could search for PDF files, or I could search for Postscript files, but not both. This hint describes how to access the more powerful expressive power of Spotlight.

Spotlight queries can be expressed using a simple query language, described here. The canned search criteria in smart folders use only a subset of the language. You can experiment with the language by using the command-line tool mdfind; you can also see example queries by invoking "Get Info" in the Finder on the saved search file. See the webpage above for more details.

To use the query language in a saved search, add a new criterion to the search and click "Other..." for the search attribute (the first field of the criterion, usually something like "Kind" or "Last Opened"). Then select "Raw Query" from the list of search attributes. Enter your query in the text field.

For example, to create the new papers query, I created a saved search with the criteria:
  • Created: This Week
  • Raw Query: ((kMDItemContentTypeTree = 'com.adobe.pdf') || (kMDItemKind = 'PostScript document'))
Presto!

[robg adds: This is an expansion of a previous hint that referenced a page of Spotlight search tips. The comments included the link to the above page on Apple's developer site, but I felt it was worth calling out in a hint of its own. The Raw Query is where the real power of Spotlight is hiding in the Finder...]
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