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dorayme - 17 May 2008 03:50 GMT

That Spotlight would find strings in text clippings.

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dorayme

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Jolly Roger - 17 May 2008 06:10 GMT

In article
<doraymeRidThis-042D76.12503317052008@news-vip.optusnet.com.au>,

> That Spotlight would find strings in text clippings.

Submit a bug report to Apple.

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dorayme - 17 May 2008 06:37 GMT

> In article
> <doraymeRidThis-042D76.12503317052008@news-vip.optusnet.com.au>,
>
> > That Spotlight would find strings in text clippings.
>
> Submit a bug report to Apple.

You mean before finding out if anyone else here on any Mac OS can find
things within text clippings?

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dorayme

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Gregory Weston - 17 May 2008 12:41 GMT

In article
<doraymeRidThis-3629E4.15371617052008@news-vip.optusnet.com.au>,

> > In article
> > <doraymeRidThis-042D76.12503317052008@news-vip.optusnet.com.au>,
[quoted text clipped - 5 lines]
> You mean before finding out if anyone else here on any Mac OS can find
> things within text clippings?

There's no support for importing text clippings in the stock OS install.
I've written an importer plugin (just now) to handle them. Write to me
directly if you'd like to try it out.

Greg

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"Harry?" Ron's voice was a mere whisper. "Do you smell something ... burning?"
- Harry Potter and the Odor of the Phoenix

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dorayme - 18 May 2008 02:41 GMT

> In article
> <doraymeRidThis-3629E4.15371617052008@news-vip.optusnet.com.au>,
[quoted text clipped - 12 lines]
> I've written an importer plugin (just now) to handle them. Write to me
> directly if you'd like to try it out.

OK, I will. Sounds interesting.

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dorayme

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Jolly Roger - 17 May 2008 16:53 GMT

In article
<doraymeRidThis-3629E4.15371617052008@news-vip.optusnet.com.au>,

To me, your wording seemed to indicate you were fairly certain it
doesn't work at all.

Then again, if it works for others, but not for you, submitting a bug
report to Apple seems even *more* valid an idea. ; )

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Mike Rosenberg - 17 May 2008 17:00 GMT

> Then again, if it works for others, but not for you, submitting a bug
> report to Apple seems even *more* valid an idea. ;

No, if it works for everyone else, it's a local problem, not a bug, and
the course of action would be to attempt to troubleshoot it on that
computer.

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Jolly Roger - 17 May 2008 17:28 GMT

> > Then again, if it works for others, but not for you, submitting a bug
> > report to Apple seems even *more* valid an idea. ;
>
> No, if it works for everyone else, it's a local problem, not a bug, and
> the course of action would be to attempt to troubleshoot it on that
> computer.

I think I'd let Apple determine whether the local problem is in fact a
bug - just to be safe. ; )

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Mike Rosenberg - 17 May 2008 17:33 GMT

> > No, if it works for everyone else, it's a local problem, not a bug, and
> > the course of action would be to attempt to troubleshoot it on that
> > computer.
>
> I think I'd let Apple determine whether the local problem is in fact a
> bug - just to be safe. ; )

Hold on now. It's common for someone to post about something he/she
complains is a bug and for one of us to respond that, since it's a
problem only that person has and cannot be reproduced elsewhere, it's
_NOT_ a bug.

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Jolly Roger - 17 May 2008 17:36 GMT

> > > No, if it works for everyone else, it's a local problem, not a bug, and
> > > the course of action would be to attempt to troubleshoot it on that
[quoted text clipped - 7 lines]
> problem only that person has and cannot be reproduced elsewhere, it's
> _NOT_ a bug.

Oh I'm not chastising her for posting about it, nor am I chastising
anyone for responding to her post. I merely suggested she file a bug
report - even if that bug report turns out to be a feature request (and
I've thought it would be from the start).

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dorayme - 18 May 2008 02:42 GMT

> Then again, if it works for others, but not for you, submitting a bug
> report to Apple seems even *more* valid an idea. ; )

I don't think so! If I started doing this, JR, I would be better off
moving next door to Steve Jobs and pestering over the fence... <g>

What I sometimes do is grab the text clippings - my desktop, for a
start, has a folder with teeming hundreds of them inside - and put them
into a textEdit file, they are then searchable.

But it is a nuisance to do this because you cannot select all of them
and drop them onto an open doc and have them all open. Only one
"sticks", the rest are ignored. So you have to repeat for as many times
as there are clippings.

Incidentally and perhaps interestingly enough, how does the OS decide
which one to stick in when selecting a group and drag dropping onto a
new open blank textEdit window?

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dorayme

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dorayme - 19 May 2008 01:55 GMT

In article
<doraymeRidThis-FBFBBF.11420918052008@news-vip.optusnet.com.au>,

> What I sometimes do is grab the text clippings - my desktop, for a
> start, has a folder with teeming hundreds of them inside - and put them
[quoted text clipped - 8 lines]
> which one to stick in when selecting a group and drag dropping onto a
> new open blank textEdit window?

A couple of things. The above is not urgent now but I am still curious
about it. But second, and more important, Gregory Weston wrote something
that he sent me which works brilliantly to enable one to search via
Spotlight for text within clippings.

It is like he waved a magic wand and made my wish come true. Bloody
clever! And I wish to thank him publicly.

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dorayme

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Gregory Weston - 19 May 2008 13:06 GMT

In article
<doraymeRidThis-667CF2.10550619052008@news-vip.optusnet.com.au>,

> In article
> <doraymeRidThis-FBFBBF.11420918052008@news-vip.optusnet.com.au>,
[quoted text clipped - 14 lines]
> A couple of things. The above is not urgent now but I am still curious
> about it.

Well, the first part of the answer is that the OS doesn't decide; the
application does. The OS gives the app all of the clippings. I would
expect that an app that only recognizes one of them (Pages is an
example, but BBEdit is a counterexample) is simply taking the first one
out of the collection.

Problem is the order in which those items are presented is not
guaranteed so there's no way for a user to really leverage that behavior
or for an app writer to guarantee the resulting state. The user is
likely to have to rearrange them anyway.

> But second, and more important, Gregory Weston wrote something
> that he sent me which works brilliantly to enable one to search via
> Spotlight for text within clippings.
>
> It is like he waved a magic wand and made my wish come true. Bloody
> clever! And I wish to thank him publicly.

You're quite welcome.

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"Harry?" Ron's voice was a mere whisper. "Do you smell something ... burning?"
- Harry Potter and the Odor of the Phoenix

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dorayme - 19 May 2008 23:51 GMT

> In article
> <doraymeRidThis-667CF2.10550619052008@news-vip.optusnet.com.au>,

> > > Incidentally and perhaps interestingly enough, how does the OS decide
> > > which one to stick in when selecting a group and drag dropping onto a
[quoted text clipped - 5 lines]
> Well, the first part of the answer is that the OS doesn't decide; the
> application does.

Right! I was too hasty and assumed all apps would behave like TextEdit
in regard to groups of clippings, dragged and dropped. Wrong assumption
of mine. See below.

> The OS gives the app all of the clippings. I would
> expect that an app that only recognizes one of them (Pages is an
> example, but BBEdit is a counterexample) is simply taking the first one
> out of the collection.

Yes, my BBEdit accepts all fine. Which would make them searchable! But
your importer solution is so much more convenient and elegant. I might
never have asked about this had I tried BBEdit in the first place.
Mistakes can be very instructive! <g>

> Problem is the order in which those items are presented is not
> guaranteed so there's no way for a user to really leverage that behavior
> or for an app writer to guarantee the resulting state. The user is
> likely to have to rearrange them anyway.

Perhaps my puzzle about the order could be put as: did the writer(s) of
TextEdit consciously programme for an order?

Anyway, just out of curiosity, I made 6 simple clippings and put them in
a folder of their own:

1.textClipping
2.textClipping
3.textClipping
A.textClipping
B.textClipping
C.textClipping

with, respectively

1
2
3
A
B
C

in each one.

I feel a bit guilty about spending too much time on this now, but one
gets curious results depending on how the clippings are grouped before
dragging. They can be grouped in col view in the finder window, in date
modified (which can make them haphazard alpha/numerically speaking) etc.
And different apps have different ways of dealing with them.

I won't bore folk with any more details! But I will say TextEdit looks
awfully surprised at being asked to do stuff like this. <g>

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dorayme

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Wes Groleau - 24 May 2008 15:20 GMT

> I won't bore folk with any more details! But I will say TextEdit looks
> awfully surprised at being asked to do stuff like this. <g>

Not very helpful for your current need, but if you select
several and do open with (textedit) in a context menu,
you get a window for each document. At least that beats
M$ Wordpad, which will only open one of them.

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Wes Groleau

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Wes Groleau - 24 May 2008 15:15 GMT

> Incidentally and perhaps interestingly enough, how does the OS decide
> which one to stick in when selecting a group and drag dropping onto a
> new open blank textEdit window?

Dragging icons from Finder into a non-Finder window just sends a list of
the file names to the app that owns the window. My guess is that
TextEdit picks the first one in the list.

Probably alphabetic, but could be by creation date or even by geometry.

Try dragging them to a Terminal window to find out.

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Wes Groleau
"Lewis's case for the existence of God is fallacious."
"You mean like circular reasoning?"
"He believes in God. Therefore, he's fallacious."

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Gregory Weston - 24 May 2008 18:35 GMT

> > Incidentally and perhaps interestingly enough, how does the OS decide
> > which one to stick in when selecting a group and drag dropping onto a
[quoted text clipped - 5 lines]
>
> Probably alphabetic, but could be by creation date or even by geometry.

Or order of selection...

> Try dragging them to a Terminal window to find out.

Ultimately there's no guarantee what order they're in. They might be
lexically sorted in 10.4, order-of-selection in 10.5 and ordered by data
fork length on alternate Thursdays in 10.5.3. You can't even really
assume that the very same selection, dragged twice, will get the same
order (although I'd be stunned if it didn't).

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"Harry?" Ron's voice was a mere whisper. "Do you smell something ... burning?"
- Harry Potter and the Odor of the Phoenix

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Mac Forum / Applications / Mac Applications / May 2008

Wish No 587