[OS X TeX] file search

[Herbert Schulz]

On Nov 6, 2005, at 8:23 AM, Themis Matsoukas wrote:

> I am new to Tiger and thoroughly confused with file search. It  
> appears that tex files in the main tex tree, usr/local/tetex...,  
> fail to show up in the file search. This despite the fact that I  
> have set Visibility to "Visible and Invisible" and specify  
> Macintosh HD as the search volume. For example, the file search for  
> texmf.cnf turns out blank. What's the magic trick?

Howdy,

The problem is that File Search seems to use Spotlight searching and,  
by default, Spotlight doesn't index /usr/... . If you want a GUI  
interface the Spotlight search (mdimport) try SpotlightIndexer,  
<http://www.kelleycomputing.net/spotlightindexer/index.php>.

Add /usr/local/teTeX/ to the index list and make sure to check off  
`Force import' in the Preferences. That will index it but if things  
change (e.g., you add files or install a new distribution of TeX)  
you'll have to run it again. Fortunately, things don't change there  
frequently. You could just use

sudo mdimport -f /usr/local/teTeX

but it's nice to be able to re-index at a click and I also have  
indexed the developer documentation (which changes even slower than  
TeX).

Good Luck,

Herb Schulz
(herbs at wideopenwest.com)


------------------------- Info --------------------------
Mac-TeX Website: http://www.esm.psu.edu/mac-tex/
          & FAQ: http://latex.yauh.de/faq/
TeX FAQ: http://www.tex.ac.uk/faq
List Archive: http://tug.org/pipermail/macostex-archives/