I can understand Lauras point. I used spotlight quite a lot for searching
messages and classes, even
if I know the exact name of the message or class, so I don't use it only
for "searching" but as an interface
to quickly open a new Browser or MessageList.

There are some minor differences that actually make a big difference, if
you are used to it, more below.
BUT and this is a big "but" and an advantage for spotter

1. Spotlight does not find all items and even if you type in a the exact
class name that exists, the first entries
spotlight shows, may only include that name. (Searching and opening a
browser for String or Morph for example)
2. even if I miss spotlight, the power of spotter (searching everything,
extensibility and search in the resultlist) outweigh this for me.


2015-02-07 23:38 GMT+01:00 Tudor Girba <tu...@tudorgirba.com>:

> Hi,
>
>
>
>> In contrast, from the perspective of that need, Spotter
>> -Doesn't search "names" (class names/selectors) but implementations,
>> overlaping the two actions of the need (when i olny hava a clue and i'm not
>> sure of the name i'm interesed into, i don't care for the list of
>> implementations, is obstrusive "garbage"). Forcing me to unnecessarily
>> think how to do what i want to do. In addition i find it hard to think
>> about the tool because i can't figure out a statement of purpose for it,
>> perhaps "global search for a name", but i'm not sure of "global" because it
>> doesn't do source code.
>>
> -Shows me "garbage" i have to mentally filter (world menu, packages,
>> pragmas, ... ).
>>
>
> I think you are misinterpreting the goal of Spotter. It is meant to
> provide a uniform interface to search all sorts of objects that you see
> interesting, and it even offers a cheap way to tweak its behavior to your
> needs. Here is a post that describes it in more details:
> http://www.humane-assessment.com/blog/introducing-gtspotter/
>

This is not quite fair :)
She said, for her spotlight is more useful, you asked for details, she said
explained it and your conclusion is " you misinterpeting the goal of
spotter" :)

The "minor" differences:
- most of the time I am searching for classes and message, I do not use
scripts and rarely search for files.
often, I know what kind of thing I am searching, messages for example, I
type in "transform" because I search for a message that starts with that
word.
- spotlight shows messages with the word "transform"
- spotter shows classes with the world "Transform", packages with the word
"Transform" and than a list of 5 method names.
- spotlight displays just the message name
- spotter shows ClassName>>#messagename ( <- this is more difficult to read
because the result entries starting with an unrelated word, the class name)
searching for implementors, I often use the search result afterwards.
- spotlight opens a MessageList
- with spotter I can only open a Browser for one implementor.

Again, the above points are not arguments for spotlight over spotter, they
just explain why I am more used to the way spotlight works for the class
and method search - I do.


nicolai

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