Mac OS X Technology Guide to Spotlight
By Rich Morin and David Hill

The first and only dedicated book on Spotlight for developers!

eBook: PDF, 189 pages, ISBN 0-9777842-4-X

An in-depth developer's guide to adding the search power of Spotlight to your Mac OS X applications. While this book shows you how to take advantage of Spotlight's blazingly fast search capabilities in your daily computing tasks, it also goes way beyond the basics, providing comprehensive coverage of the Spotlight API for developers. Spotlight aficionados Rich Morin and David Hill will teach you:

• How the Spotlight technology works with the file system as a tightly integrated part of Mac OS X 10.4 Tiger.
• How to utilize Spotlight in your own applications.
• Detailed coverage of search query string syntax.
• How to write search queries, using either Carbon or Cocoa.
• How to make your own application files searchable by Spotlight.
• How (and when) to write importers.

Read the first two chapters - Download the FREE Preview!
 

Table of Contents

Chapter 1: Introduction Disk is Free, but Organization is Not Some File System History The Trouble with Trees Spotlight to the Rescue? Open Issues Futures Spotlight Overview Quick Start Spotlight Resources Chapter 2: Overview Chapter 3: Data and Metadata Spotlight and Metadata The Spotlight Store Metadata Sources Metadata Collection Importers Chapter 4: Query Strings Generating Query Strings in the Finder Query Structure Operators and Expressions Date and Time Query Structure, Redux Using Query Strings with the Shell More Complex Queries

Chapter 5: Accessing Spotlight Using Core Services A Simple Metadata Example A Simple Query Example A Live Query Example Other Important Topics Chapter 6: Accessing Spotlight Using Foundation The Primary Classes Command-Line Queries GUI Queries Other Important Topics Chapter 7: Writing a Spotlight Importer The Xcode Importer Project Template The Parts of an Importer Text Clipping Importer Wrap Up Appendix A: Spotlight Keys Appendix B: Saved Searches Appendix C: Indexing Darwin Files Appendix D: Source Code Listings Index

About the Authors

Rich Morin programs computers, writes, and edits for a living. He is interested in the use of semi-structured data as a way to combine human-contributed and mechanically-harvested information into useful, readable documentation. He lives in San Bruno, California with his spouse Vicki and four cats. Visit Rich's Canta Forda Computer Laboratory site at http://www.cfcl.com

David Hill is a freelance writer living in College Station, Texas. In a former life, he worked in Apple's Developer Technical Support group helping developers print, draw, and write games. In his free time, he dabbles in games, screen savers, and other esoteric topics.

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