Finder and Searchlight searches are fully definable. One can also
narrow down to specific locations such a folder divisions you have
adhered to. Spotlight is very good at searching audio file tags like
those created with Audacity and most other apps. When I'm looking for
a certain type of material, I search file names with the finder and
drag all the matches into an iTunes Playlist. I can "spot" play
through this list very quickly or copy them to my iPod if I'm going
to have some spare listening time out of the studio.
If one is uses informative, consistent file naming, OS sorting
abilities are just about as powerful and flexible as those in a
database. Creating a logical structure with folders helps; make it
apply to all uses and try to keep the structure the same. The missing
link is not being able to output what is called a "record" in a
database- a unified document for each entry (field recording
instance/date) that has all related info with active links.
There's an intermediate step one can take now to be more prepared for
conversion to a full-featured library with correlated archiving like
I was describing. Make-up an .xls type spreadsheet with defined
cells for entering the data you want to track now and in the future
for each recording you make. You can paste in about anything
including photos, links to sound files, other documents and urls.
It's much easier to import xls logs into a database than from a text
document. Spreadsheets search equally. If anyone wants to draft some
xls logging sheets to share, I'm sure the recordists on the list with
considerable logging skills can add some valuable suggestions.
Spreadsheet tips too. This is not limited to Mac users as all
Operation Systems have built-in robust searching tools and .xls
sheets are cross platform. For those without Excel, there are
freeware alternatives. Rob D.
=3D =3D =3D
At 9:26 AM -0500 8/20/09, Steve Duncan wrote:
> Funny - I especially liked tags because it did an 'and' rather than an
>'or'. Does spotlight provide a better search method?
>
>Steve Duncan | www.swduncan.com
>
>On Aug 20, 2009, at 7:32 AM, "jtudor2005"
><<john%40tudorfarm.net.au>> wrote:
>
>> --- In
>><naturerecordists%40yahoogroups.com>=
om,
>>Steve Duncan <>
>> wrote:
>>>
>>> Tags looks very good. I think I'll give it a try as well.
>>>
>> I've been having a bit more of a play. It seems that it will only
>> find search results for an item that matches all of the terms. I had
>> some audio tagged 'frogs' some 'birds' some 'recording' I couldn't
>> search for example 'frog' 'recording' since the items tagged frog
>> didn't contain the word 'recording' they didn't show in the results.
>>
>> I could search on 'frog' and get my frogs, 'bird' and get the birds,
>> but 'frog' 'bird' returns nothing. I would have thought it would
>> have displayed results for both but it seems to be an AND rather
> > than an OR search.
>
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