Membranophonist’s Ramblings

Creating and Editing Smart Folders

1. Now that metadata can be used to group and sort files, displays of such metadata that cannot be acted upon are missed opportunities. Let users create new Smart Folders directly from file metadata displays (Info windows and the Column view’s right-most column when a file is selected) by selecting a metadata item to be used as the first criteria.
   1. The user clicks an attribute action menu in an Info window to create a new Smart Folder using the attribute.
   2. Users could also use a file attribute action menu from a Column view window to create a new Smart Folder.
2. Allow users to drag metadata name/value pairs from the display locations to open Smart Folder windows to add them as criteria. This would reduce the number of trips users have to make to the “Other…” dialog to select infrequently used metadata types.
   1. The user opens a Smart Folder that gathers images that can be used as desktop pictures.
   2. The user then decides they want to refocus the Smart Folder on just grayscale images.
   3. The Info window is opened for a grayscale image from among all the images matching their screen resolution.
   4. The user then drags the “Color space: Gray” object to the existing Smart Folder to add it as a search criterion.
   5. The Smart Folder now contains only grayscale images of the specified resolution.

   The very nice Yosemite image is from Seattle-area photographer and musician Matthew Felton. I found his site through the URL embedded in the image’s IPTC metadata.

3. Users should be able to Command-click to select multiple “Other” search criteria, both for addition as Favorites and as search criteria.
4. Holding Option while the contextual menu is open should switch “New Folder” to “New Smart Folder”.
5. When saving a new Smart Folder, suggesting a name based on the rules would be nice. Similar to Smart Playlists in iTunes, the suggested name could be automatically highlighted so it could be overwritten by simply typing in another name.
6. The height and width pixel dimension criteria should allow exact specification rather than just Greater than/Less than.
7. Smart Folders are XML plists, but they should be grouped in “Folders” rather than “Other” in Finder search results and probably not displayed in the Documents section of the Apple menu’s Recent Items sub-menu.

Spotlight

1. Object names that have been truncated should be displayed in their entirety when the cursor is held over them for two seconds or immediately if the Option key is held down.
2. Smart Folders should be displayed in the Folders group rather than Documents.