Amazing, strange, and mystifying - SOLVED

[Jim Ault]

An update on 'spooky' Rev incident.
SOLVED  -- Rev is definitely NOT the culprit
My working version of a stack that had script-only changes is, indeed,
correctly saved to my hard drive.

The culprit is SPOTLIGHT, which is a Mac OSX feature new with Tiger versions
(10.4+).  Here is why the insidious nature of Spotlight bit me.

1.  Spotlight is an indexer that works automatically on every text, pdf,
doc, spreadsheet, html file (and more) as well as files and folders.  It
cannot be turned off.

2.  I was using Rev to process text files into recombined tab-delimited
files.  Many megabytes, but simple stuff.

3.  At the completion of part of the run, Spotlight now took over to index
all of this malarky, bringing my processor to its knees.  After several
minutes of letting this process complete, I read the docs, declared the
folders containing the text files as 'private', therefore avoiding any
further indexing.

4.  Because my working stack was in one of these private folders. ANY kind
search of the hard drive for files and folders would not list these.  Who
thought of this feature??!!!!!!!!  I can see turning off indexing of file
contents, but the file and folder search as well??

What the docs did not make clear is that the privacy would apply to more
than file contents.

5.  Using my other tool, Path Finder, (a marvelous tool by the way),  I was
able to solve different mystery and then the light came on!  The working
file was there all along.

Bottom line -- my faith in Rev is restored, my plugin is actually a very
good tool for being able to revert to any previous version of my scripts, my
hard drive will be organized a bit differently, and I will definitely put
Spotlight on a shorter leash.  It is overkill for most anything I need.

In addition, I am adding the altArchive plugin to my repertoire, as a good
business practice.  Whew.  Ah, yes, "Learning at the Speed of Sand --
running quickly through the hour glass, as I miss a deadline or two."


On 1/19/06 7:38 PM, "Jim Ault" <JimAultWins at yahoo.com> wrote:

> On 1/19/06 3:47 PM, "Mark Swindell" <mswindel at santacruz.k12.ca.us> wrote:
>> This is kind of spooky, no?  Has the behavior been reproduced or does
>> it still appear random?
>> Mark
> 
> Spooky is a good word.
> Appears only to have been yesterday, the 18th.  Not reproduced since.  I am
> starting to use the altArchive plugin to make auto backups.  Not sure if
> this will only backup the "static, unchanged" version or the progressive
> ones am hoping for.
> 
> I created the following plugin:  SaveWithScriptPI.rev added to altPlugins
> toolbar.  Works like a charm.  I feel better.
> 
> on saveWithScriptBkup       --1.19.06  Mac OSX version
>   put the short name of the topStack into stk
>   put the mainStack of stack stk into stk
>   revSave stk
>   --then put the script in another folder
>   put "file:" & specialFolderPath("docs") &"/scriptsRev/" into pathh
>   get the short name of the topStack
>   put pathh & the seconds & it & "SCPT.txt" into pathhFN
>   put the script of this stack into url pathhFN
> end saveWithScriptBkup
> 
> 
> --using the seconds gives automatic script versioning without doing the
> altArchive of the whole stack file each time.  I like doing frequent saves
> while scripting, sometimes 4 or 5 saves in 5 minutes.
> 
> This will work for my programming style, which is to do most all of my
> scripts in the stack script container, using buttons and fields as
>  on mouseup
>    do the short name of me
> end mouseup
> 
> on mouseDown
>   do (the short name of me & "Down")
> end mouseDown
> 
> I will let you know if any thing else of note happens.
> 
> Jim Ault