Spotlight is, to put it succinctly, horribly buggy and often, just doesn’t work. I read about people that were discovering that Spotlight wasn’t finding blatantly obvious files and I snickered to myself. Then I discovered that Spotlight on my computer wasn’t finding everything. I can be actually looking at the file in the Finder or an App, and no matter how I form the query; the Spotlight engine will not find the file. This is entirely unacceptable. Sure, apparently there are workarounds, but I shouldn't have to delete the entire index on my HD just to find some file!
So we've established that Spotlight just can’t find stuff. But there are plenty of other problems too. One of the most obvious is that despite being a window, it is not part of any application. This can get especially annoying since the menubar is telling you you're in an App that you're not. This means there is then no way to switch to it using the Dock or Command-tab. Basically the only what to switch to the Spotlight window is via exposé.
The Pesky Get Info Button
This is a simple, problem, but it is also one of the most frustrating. Whoever it was that make the hit-mask for the get-info button in Spotlight really messed up. I'm too lazy to test every pixel but on my computer essentially some of the bottom half of that little i button doesn't register anything when you click on it. This means you have an even smaller target than the already small button. It's frustrating to hit a button and not have it do anything. The other clicking issue is that when you have file's information expanded, clicking on the area of the window that has the file information does not bring the file into focus, you must click on the filename itself.
Mail Messages When you look at a mail message, what is a more important identifying characteristic? The subject of the email? Or who sent it to you? There are many emails with the same sender, but only a small amount with the same subject. Besides, most of the emails that do share titles are by the same person (i.e. a thread with several replies). All of this would suggest that it is most logical to identify mail by it's Subject. It's not like you would identify a PDF file by its author, why would a mail message be any different? In the Spotlight window the identifying characteristic of Mail messages is their Author, with the subject being a minor note to the side. Moreover, Apple does not make this mistake with the Spotlight drop-down menu in the menubar, it's just the window where they confuse.
Last Opened
Another mistake that Spotlight makes is treat the Last Opened field as the "Date" field. Now, I'm sure this sounds like a marvellous idea. That way the computer can track your handling of a file even though you don't make any changes. Yet, ultimately it is a hassle. When I search for a file using Spotlight, I often get multiple results, and I need to look at them. However, I also sort my files by date because that is how I can logically go through them—since I often have a vague idea what file comes after another. The problem is that as soon as I open a file to preview it, it moves to the top of the list, and I no longer have any information on the actual date of the file: it has been obscured by this "Last Opened" field. There are two solutions to this problem: offer some kind of protected preview of files so that it doesn't register as opened, or, just use the Last Modified date. Another mistake is that if there is no Last Opened date, it doesn't fall back to the Last Modified date, it just says "No Date".
But there is another flaw with the dates system in Mac OS X: folders. About a year ago both my iBook and my iMac's Hard Drives crashed horribly. This meant that I've been moving files around between them (backing up and restoring as I reformat or get a new HD). Somehow, in the process of this, many of the folders in my user folder had their last modified dates messed with. Almost all of the folders in my user folder have a last modified date of either 24 June or 26 Jun. Now this isn't really a flaw with Spotlight, but it still is a problem with Mac OS X. Frankly, I have no idea what happened, but the end result is that I must completely ignore date data for folders when I search with Spotlight.
Person
The so-called "Person" metadata field is far from ideal. Now, maybe I just have my own erroneous ideas about what this should be, but this metadata field has very little to do with people. This is because in reality, it is the "Author" metadata field. This means that movies and PDF's made by obscure organisations will show up in their own categories. I don't know about you, but I haven't the slightest clue who is down as the Author of some DOC or PDF on my computer. Now, this is a useful feature for searching emails, but since the results are so cluttered with Author metadata from other formats, it's very difficult to use. And of course, 90% of my files don't have this data in the first place, so most files are just in the "No Author" category.
Previewing
Previews are strange in Spotlight. First, images and PDF's can be seen in a Preview View while in Spotlight. This means that you can see the first page of a PDF, or, a thumbnail of an image, instead of a flat list. However, this functionality is NOT present in the Spotlight part Finder. You can preview images, but in the Finder the Previewing of PDF's has been disabled. Either way, theoretically, the previewing of files is available when you hit the info button next to a file. However, only some filetypes support this, even if they are able to be indexed by Spotlight. As far as I can tell (in addition to sounds, movies, images and PDF's), only Plain Text files, and of those, only those that show up in the Documents category, will show a preview. Moreover, they don't even show a preview in the Spotlight window: the preview is only visible in the Finder. Why is it that files that the system knows are Plain Text, but don't show up in that category, are treated any differently than those that do?
Many other file types could have previews. Every single word processing document should have a preview (including all source code files), as well as presentations and webpages. Moreover, folders should have a preview of the contents inside. This would be much more useful than seeing a blown up picture of a folder icon. Lastly, the position for previews is silly. If you put it to the left of the metadata, it cannot expand it be as wide as possible. If however, the metadata was put on the left, the preview could expand to the entire width of the Finder window, allowing previews of text documents to have much more content (currently only a few words fit), and giving previews of widescreen movies larger dimensions. Also previews of PDF's and presentation could then show as many pages as fit across the screen. Additionally, if the text preview area was to be wider you could add a scrollbar, making the entire document readable, much as is currently true with sound files or movies. There is one other issue related to previews: if I do a search for Images, but group by date (or just have a flat list), it is impossible to invoke the slideshow function or have image previews. Only when you group by kind is this possible.
The Arrow Keys When you have the results organised by groups you can, of course, collapse some or all of the groups. The bug is that when you are scrolling though the list of files with the arrow keys, Spotlight doesn't know that some groups are collapsed. This means that if you have, for example, the AppleScript category collapsed between Folder and Images categories, when you go to the last folder and hit the down key the selection disappears until you have arrowed past all the AppleScripts (which you cannot see), and then the focus reappears at the top of the Images list. Another issue with keys deals with the page up and page down keys. These keys will not operate until you have clicked in the area that can scroll.
Advanced Search Unfortunaltey, there are no basic advanced search features. Now, theoretically Spotlight has support for NOT and OR, but said support is confusing and picky. Google "not spotlight query" and, the second result, a blog entry, reveals just how poor support really is. Luckily for Apple, there is already a great search syntax out there that almost everyone knows. I'm talking about Google. Google is used by millions of people an hour, thus it would be very easy for the normal user to pick up on it. Google can be simple and powerful at the same time. It even supports phrases like "not spotlight query". Currently Spotlight cannot handle this. Also, as far as I know there is no way to search for files just by their name. While not too useful, it could be something that someone would want.
Faked Files Strangely, some "files" are available only in Spotlight mode, not the Finder's Spotlight-search. These are those files that use a special viewing Application like: Address Book contacts, Bookmarks, Email messages and iCal Events and ToDo's. The reason they are not included is obvious: they are not stored in regular files, but instead in various obscure places in the OS. This needs to change. It should be so that, like iTunes, the files are easily accessible without opening the Application. iTunes is great for viewing the music files, but that doesn't keep it from having a neat and organised way to store the files within the filesystem. It's not like the current system is used for Mail messages in order to allow quick random access as you scroll through your messages, since iPhoto has quick access and its files are all over the place in the filesystem.
Inconsistent GroupingsMy next caveat is the grouping system that is used in Spotlight (and the Finder). I am dissapointed with the way that categories arbitrarily change once you go from the Spotlight window to the Finder window. For some reason, as if to replace the 4 categories that don't actually have files (see above), there are 4 categories used only in the Finder: AppleScript, Source code, HTML and Other. Moreover, the Documents category changes from having all the "Other" files to having just Word Processing files. I find it ever funnier that the colours used in the Finder and Spotlight for categories are different: Yet another inconsistency lies in the Kind popup menu that you can use when you hit command-f in the Finder (see below). Logic would dictate that each of the Kind options here would line up exactly with the categories (it is grouped by kind). The bottom line is that what you call a "Document" in Spotlight should mean the exact same thing as a "Document" in the Finder and as a "Document" in this popup menu.
Subcategories Let's go on a little thought experiment. I search for something in the Finder, like for "Apple", and I choose "Images" from the Kind menu. This should mean that all of my results are images. Now I want to group by kind. But wait! All of my results have been put in a single category: images. What I wanted was my results grouped by kind, not all put into one group. The problem here is that the grouping system is not very smart. If I have all of the results in one category, it will not break that category out into subcategories. For example, with this search it could have JPEG images, and PNG's and GIF's. Apple should certainly come up with a more advanced categorisation system.
Category Customization?There is one last thing about this whole categories thing that I find to be a problem. It is iChat. When I first heard of Spotlight, the first thing that came to mind was the ability to search iChat logs. Previously I had had to use 3rd party apps to search them, and I was looking forward to being able to have that ability built into the system. Now, I don't use IM as much as some of my friends, so I know I'm not unique in having a lot of iChat logs. Currently I have about 2000-some (compared to 3000 emails), and in any given search a large number of iChat conversations come up. Why is it that something like Presentations (of which I have 5 on my whole system), get their own category, while something else that I get results with in every query, does not? I hope that Apple makes a Conversations category, or makes it possible for me to add a Conversations category, so that I can search these iChat logs with maximum efficiency.
Cancelling and Saving Conclusions are always important, but there's no way to end a search. When you are done with a Spotlight search, there is no way to save it for later, like you can in the Finder. Interestingly, even when you do save a search in the Finder, in the dialouge that comes up there isn't that little expand button that allows you to browse the filesystem. Lastly, in the Finder if you start typing a search but decide you don't want to search, hitting the backspace key so there is nothing in the field doesn't cancel the search like it would in Mail, you have to hit the X in the box.