I have made a number of smart groups using the script from the Script menu. Is there a way to acess and edit the script after it has been allocated to a group, to change e.g. the search criteria?
At this time, it’s often easier to create a new smart group with revised search criteria. But try this experiment: What happens if you change the name of a smart group? (Yes, that changed the search strategy used by the smart group.)
Remember that smart groups contain replicants of your existing content, so that they add little to the ‘bulk’ of your database. Likewise, deleting a smart group does not delete any documents from your database.
Opening a smart group triggers the script ensures that the contents are up to date and include content added to or deleted from the database since the smart group was last opened.
Changing the name of the group also changes the search string. To change additional criteria, you would have to either edit the script in Apple’s Script Editor (Warning: This would affect any group using the script) or select another smart group script via the Info panel.
Is there some way to search for groups that have Smart Group or other scripts attached to them? With hundreds of groups in my primary database it would be immensely tedious finding ones with scripts attached, which has inhibited my using attached scripts more liberally. And manually keeping track of them is an unwanted maintenance ritual. In general, certain tasks with larger databases could be better served with more tools.
That’s (not) yet possible. But the next release will probably use an icon to distinguish standard groups/contents and groups/contents with an attached script.
Sounds good, thanks.
Generally, and ideally, I’d still like the ability to search for any “criteria” that can be associated with items in a database. That would greatly simplify making “global” changes to matched items.
For now a workaround is to replicate items to groups that identify which non-searchable criteria is applied to them. Just wish I’d thought of that earlier while my primary database was much smaller. 