Invoking the magic of Spotlight is a snap. The Spotlight search field always hangs out on the right side of the Finder menu bar. You can either click once on the magnifying glass icon or just press F5. Either way, Tiger displays the Spotlight search box.
Spotlight works by indexing - in other words, searching for and keeping track of keywords in your files. In fact, Tiger indexes the contents of your laptop's hard drive into a huge file, which it constantly maintains as you create and modify files. Tiger can search this index file in a fraction of a second after you enter your search criteria. The index file contains all sorts of data, including quite a bit of information from various documents - hence Spotlight's ability to present matching data inside your files and application records.
When you first boot Tiger, it spends anywhere from a few minutes to an hour or two creating the Spotlight index file. If you click the Spotlight icon while indexing is taking place, you'll see a progress bar indicating how much longer you have to wait before you can use Spotlight. Creating this full index happens only once, so it's no great burden to bear.
You can search for any string of text characters in Spotlight. You'll be surprised at everything this plucky feature can search. For example, Spotlight searches through your Address Book contacts, mail messages, iCal calendars, iChat transcripts, and even System Preferences! Yep, you can even use it to find specific settings in all those System Preferences panes, such as printer sharing or Dashboard. Spotlight locates and displays matching files and folders - like that other operating system - but it performs searches in the blink of an eye.
Spotlight matches only those items that include all your search text. Therefore, if you enter just the word horse, you're likely to get far more matches than if you enter a word string, such as horse show ticket.
If you add metadata to your documents (such as the Comments field in a Word document or the keywords embedded in a Photoshop image), Spotlight can match that information as well. Other recognized file formats include AppleWorks documents, Excel spreadsheets, Keynote presentations, Pages documents, and third-party applications that offer a Spotlight plug-in.
Spotlight works so seamlessly - and so doggone fast - because it's literally built into the core of Tiger (unlike that other operating system that begins with a W, which uses a separate program to search and can take a couple of minutes to return just matching filenames). Spotlight's integration into the heart of Tiger allows those high-IQ Apple developers (and even smart folks outside the company) to easily use it elsewhere within Tiger.
