Re: One Little Thing

"Snit" <CSMA@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message news:C275B893.81C38%CSMA@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
"Dan Johnson" <danieljohnson@xxxxxxxxxxxx> stated in post
1350prbr2g31201@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx on 5/20/07 8:21 AM:
Ah, well, it's still an eternity to the computer. :D

Half a second from the time I changed the name of the folder to the time it
shows up in a search does not seem bad to me... especially on older hardware
while I was running other software.

Sure. But it's still fundamentally a background indexer, like
the one in XP (but quicker).

[snip]
As long as that is so (and it's not with some apps, like Pages), then
the file gets indexed only once.

I just tried it - created a file in Pages and added the text "zygwartz". I
pressed save it as "x" - it took it a second or so to save, but when it did
the file showed up almost instantly in the Spotlight search. I then changed
the text and save it again - it disappeared from the search (but a backup
appeared). I then copied a few pages of Lorem Ipsum text and added the
"zygwartz" to the end of the text. Again, almost instant (within the half
second or so)

Pages is notoriously slow, and you can see in your second example
how this causes Spotlight to do extra work.

Spotlight indexed it *during* the save, which is when it saw the
backup present, and also was unable to index the original.
Then it did it all again after the save. It did at least twice as
much work than it really needed to, in this case, in order to
keep the live search live.

Vista wouldn't have done the extra index, unless the disk went
idle for a while mid-save. I don't recall if Pages does that.

[snip]
That's not the same mechanism, as I understand it- it's using
kqueues to detect changes in the displayed folder, and it refreshes
if it sees any. No indexing is needed, and there's no overhead
imposed unless you actually do have a Finder window open.

I did, of course, have the Finder window open - maybe I will try it again
but save text in the Terminal. Not sure what that would prove, but, hey,
its an added variable!

If you have no Finder windows open, you can't see any Finder
windows update. Or so I imagine. :D

[snip]
Do you really need to refresh searches often?

I have searches open while waiting for people to use a drop box - so I have
had use for it.

I see. That could be useful- if you want to monitor several
drop-boxes at once. Otherwise a normal Finder window
would save you a whole (er) half a second. :D

[snip]
If so, that suggests that it's not a deliberate delay, just the time
required for the Spotlight machinery to work.

Well, time to save and add to index and be found in the index and discovered
by the Finder and be shown...

Yeah, there's a fair amount of slack in there.

But that's probably a good thing. The tigher the tolerances are here,
the more spurious reindexes and redraws happen. Each one has
a cost.

.

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