Will spotlight find files in the Entourage database?

[Kenneth Gorelick]

The entourage database seems to hide everything in it from the Mac--you need
to search using Entourage itself. Will spotlight in Tiger be able to search
Entourage database files?
Ken

 

[matt neuburg]

The entourage database seems to hide everything in it from the Mac--you need
to search using Entourage itself. Will spotlight in Tiger be able to search
Entourage database files?

Not on Friday. m.

 

[mmmmark]

Or in locales not observing daylight savings time.

 

[Kenneth Gorelick]

Thanks guys! I am now enlightened regarding spotlight...<g>
Ken

 

[Daiya Mitchell]

You may find these articles slightly more satisfying, though not
particularly much more enlightening:

http://www.macworld.com/news/2005/04/12/mstiger/index.php

http://www.macworld.com/news/2005/01/11/microsoft/index.php

 

[matt neuburg]

Thanks guys! I am now enlightened regarding spotlight...<g>
Ken

Okay, but my answer was serious. On Friday, Tiger comes out. Spotlight
won't work with the Entourage database on that day. But you asked "will
spotlight be able to search Entourage database files?". The word "will"
could mean "will it ever?" Well, it will if Microsoft rewrites Entourage
to make it searchable with Spotlight. But I don't know if that will
happen. I do know, however, that it won't happen in time for Tiger on
Friday. So my answer was restricted to what I knew - I know it won't
work on Friday, but it might work at some future date, so I was silent
about that.

The other guy's answer (about daylight savings time) was just him being
silly. m.

 

[Kenneth Gorelick]

Sorry, I thought you were being facetious. Perhaps I was a little slow!
Daiya's links to the Macworld articles cleared everything up for me.
Ken

 

[aRKay]

So my answer was restricted to what I knew - I know it won't
work on Friday, but it might work at some future date, so I was silent
about that.

Matt,

Will the Tiger spotlight be able to find files in Apple's Mail program?
If so then MS may take the time and spend the money to make Entourage
spotlight friendly. On the other hand if Apple's Mail is not spotlight
friendly, I question if MS will go to the trouble fix Entourage. Funny
how these things work.

Reminds me of the NOAA weather buttons on US car radios. As soon as Ford
adds the capability to tune NOAA weather stations, GM will follow but
nobody wants to be first. Until they get their act together you have to
buy high end imports to be able to listen to the free NOAA weather from
your car.

aRKay

 

[Barry Wainwright]

Matt,

Will the Tiger spotlight be able to find files in Apple's Mail program?
If so then MS may take the time and spend the money to make Entourage
spotlight friendly. On the other hand if Apple's Mail is not spotlight
friendly, I question if MS will go to the trouble fix Entourage. Funny
how these things work.

Reminds me of the NOAA weather buttons on US car radios. As soon as Ford
adds the capability to tune NOAA weather stations, GM will follow but
nobody wants to be first. Until they get their act together you have to
buy high end imports to be able to listen to the free NOAA weather from
your car.

aRKay

Yes, spotlight will find Apple Mail files, because the version of Mail
shipping it Tiger has reverted to saving all mails as individual files in
stead of in mailboxes.

Will entourage go this route? I very much doubt it! Will MS make use of the
much vaunted APIs that as supposed to become available at some time? If it's
practical to do so, I would expect they will. The MacBU have never been
afraid to latch on to Apple technology where it will help improve their
product without causing undue problems elsewhere.

It all depends on what is in the APIs if/when they are published.

 

[Rob Buckley]

Yes, spotlight will find Apple Mail files, because the version of Mail
shipping it Tiger has reverted to saving all mails as individual files in
stead of in mailboxes.

Will entourage go this route? I very much doubt it! Will MS make use of the
much vaunted APIs that as supposed to become available at some time? If it's
practical to do so, I would expect they will. The MacBU have never been
afraid to latch on to Apple technology where it will help improve their
product without causing undue problems elsewhere.

It all depends on what is in the APIs if/when they are published.

If you want an exciting (ish) look at exactly how Spotlight works with Mail,
iCal and Addressbook (the latter two of which use big monolithic databases),
try http://arstechnica.com/reviews/os/macosx-10.4.ars/9

John Siracusa's stuff is always fantastic - pity he writes so infrequently!

If you can't make it through that, basically Apple uses the monolithic
databases as before, but for each entry in the database creates a completely
new proxy file for Spotlight's benefit. So for Spotlight to work with
Entourage, realise that at the moment, every calendar entry, address book
contact, task, note, project and email message would have to have a proxy
Finder file hidden away somewhere. Possible, but there are seriously better
ways of doing things and the amount of work facing the MacBU would beŠ
impressive.