[OS X TeX] Spotlight importers

[Bruno Voisin]

Yesterday I downloaded LaTeX MDImporter from <http:// 
yaced.sourceforge.net/> and installed it inside /Library/SpotLight/.  
The file ReadMe.rtf in the .pkg bundle says LaTeX.mdimporter can be  
put either there, or in ~/Library/Spotlight, or inside an / 
Applications/Emacs.app bundle. During the install, the user can  
select the location.

Then I ran "mdimport -f /usr/local/teTeX". The motivation was not to  
have .tex Emacs files added to the SpotLight database (I don't use  
Emacs other than for testing purposes), but to have  
all .tex .cls .sty etc. files inside the gwteX directories added to  
the database.

Alas, even after doing this, searching for \eqalign, defined in  
plain.tex, returns only the files plain.tex from my Textures and  
OzTeX setups, not the one in gwTeW.

I'm a bit reluctant to edit such low-level file as /.Spotlight-V100/ 
_rules.plist (as mentioned by Maarten Sneep in another message from  
this thread) if that can be avoided.

 From another list, it seems the problem is actually different,  
namely that the .tex files inside gwTeX are not associated with any  
importer (even after installing LaTeX.mdimporter):

> $ mdimport -d1 -f /usr/local/teTeX/share/texmf.tetex/tex/plain/base/ 
> plain.tex
> 2005-05-10 16:50:15.340 mdimport[494] Import '/usr/local/teTeX/ 
> share/texmf.tetex/tex/plain/base/plain.tex' type  
> 'dyn.ah62d4rv4ge81k3p2' no mdimporter

If the file type (in Classic Mac OS Creator/Type resource sense) is  
changed to "TEXT", the .tex file is identified as Rich Text, and an  
importer is found:

> $ cp /usr/local/teTeX/share/texmf.tetex/tex/plain/base/plain.tex ~/ 
> Desktop/
>
> $ cd ~/Desktop
>
> $ /Developer/Tools/SetFile -t "TEXT" plain.tex
>
> $ mdimport -d1 plain.tex
> 2005-05-05 16:40:17.105 mdimport[731] Import '/Users/brunovoisin/ 
> Desktop/plain.tex' type 'com.apple.traditional-mac-plain-text'  
> using 'file://localhost/System/Library/Spotlight/RichText.mdimporter/'

But even better, as pointed by Will Robertson on another list, would  
probably be to assign proper UTIs (the Tiger resurrection/improvement  
of Creator/Type resources <http://arstechnica.com/reviews/os/ 
macosx-10.4.ars/11>) to TeX files. This will happen: people are  
brainstorming on it at the TUG level.

Afterwards it should be easier to write Spotlight importers, I imagine.

Bruno Voisin
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