CPU usage

I imported a bunch of documents into eaglefiler. They were previously residing in the file system.

For the last 12 hours efindextool has been using 90% CPU, intermixed with EF using 50% CPU (they bounce back and forth between who is using the CPU).

What is causing this? I see that efindextool is used to index the database. I was under the impression that EF used spotlight as its underlying engine. Since the file were already index by spotlight, why index again?

What sort of documents did you import? How many? How large are they?

efindextool’s sole purpose is to update the index file using the text that EagleFiler extracted from the documents. Depending on the amount of data that you imported, the CPU use that you observed could be normal. It’s also possible that the index file is damaged, in which case resetting it would help. Also, switching from phrase to word indexing will greatly speed up the indexing process.

EagleFiler does not use the Spotlight index. However, it does use Spotlight’s importer plug-ins in order to index file types that EagleFiler doesn’t natively understand.

  1. EagleFiler indexes more content (Web archives on Tiger) and metadata (tags, EagleFiler notes, Skim notes, etc.) than Spotlight does.
  2. It’s faster to search just the contents of the library than the entire Spotlight index.
  3. You can easily copy (or restore from backup) an EagleFiler library along with its indexes, whereas with Spotlight you might have to wait through hours of re-indexing in order to search.

I understand that eaglefiler predates a lot of the new features in spotlight, But I have to wonder if a more integrated with spotlight approach would be better.

Leopards Spotlights and quickview largely eliminate the need for Eaglefiler as a viewer and search. It seems to me that if anything the finder is more flexible at navigating the file structure, giving more view options.

One of the problems with the current approach, is you have 2 different indexs for the same data. But eaglefiler isn’t privy to changes in that data like spotlight is, since it doesn’t get automatically updated every time something is added to the file system, a file is changed, renamed, etc.

I’m giving eaglefiler a whirl because the model used by others like Devonthink is even worse. But the problem still stands, that I have to end up having 2 separate filing systems, one through eaglefiler, and one into the file system through application save dialogs/searching in the finder. When do I use one over the other? Obviously I can’t use eaglefiler if saving from an application, so that goes into the finder by default. But what if it logically belongs with something stored in eaglefinder? And when I’m looking for something, now I have 2 place to look for it. Finding files becomes a bipolar experience - which is worse than the finder by itself.

What I like about eaglefiler is this: Its ability to quickly grab a PDF or HTML file while doing research and file it away. Other than that I don’t see any advantage it provides over spotlight and quicklook. Why not make eaglefiler primarily a filer adding metadata through the spotlight API + an improved spotlight interface that can focus to a certain folder tree?

I don’t see anything that the eaglefinder search is doing that spotlight can’t.

I much prefer using EagleFiler. The searching is faster, it highlights the matching search terms, and it’s easy to set the scope of the search. Quick Look is nice, but in many cases it doesn’t provide as rich a preview as EagleFiler. And, of course, it doesn’t support editing. This is not to say that one should avoid Spotlight and Quick Look, but rather that I think they have different and complementary strengths compared with EagleFiler.

The Finder certainly offers more view options, although there are some things EagleFiler can do that the Finder can’t. Again, EagleFiler doesn’t force you to choose: you can use whichever tool is best for the task at hand.

Currently, EagleFiler knows to reindex if you edit the file within EagleFiler or if (on a periodic check) it notices that a file has changed. A future version may work more like Spotlight and notice the changes immediately.

I like to use EagleFile’s To Import folder from save dialogs. Going forward I have various plans to make it act more like a single filing system, e.g. so that you can save directly into the library.

I’m not really sure what you’re suggesting. You can find the documents using either EagleFiler or Spotlight, much like you can search for mail, contacts, calendar items, bookmarks, etc. using the more specialized application or the Finder/Spotlight. Personally, I find it helpful to partition my documents into different EagleFiler libraries; it makes it easier to find and browse for what I’m looking for.

Well, to start with there is no Spotlight API to add metadata. Also, a key feature of EagleFiler is efficient storage and searching of mail messages, which Spotlight can’t do because it indexes at the file level.