Sherlock (software)
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Sherlock 3.6, Movies channel
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| Developer(s) | Apple Inc. |
|---|---|
| Stable release |
3.6.2 (179)
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| Development status | Active |
| Operating system | Mac OS 8, 9, X |
| Type | search engine |
| Website | www |
Sherlock, named after Sherlock Holmes, is a file and web search tool created by Apple Inc. for Mac OS (not to be confused with macOS), introduced with Mac OS 8 as an extension of the Mac OS Finder's file searching capabilities. Like its predecessor, it can search for local files and file contents, which it does using the same basic indexing code and search logic found in AppleSearch. Sherlock extended the system by allowing the user to search for items through the world wide web through a set of plugins that harness existing web search engines. These plugins were written as plain text files, so that it was a simple task for a user to write a Sherlock plugin.
Sherlock was replaced by Spotlight and Dashboard in Mac OS X 10.4 Tiger, although Apple continued to include it with the default installation. Since most of the standard plug-ins for Sherlock provided by Apple itself no longer function, it was officially retired and removed in the release of Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard in 2007.
The Sherlock 2 search plugin is an SGML document, and is typically given the ".src" file extension. The Sherlock plug-in is composed of three parts, identified by their element names: <search>, <input>, and <interpret> tags. These elements allow Sherlock to (respectively) identify a search's engine's web page and the parts that are relevant to searching, as well as returning the results of the search. There is also a facility for defining how a Sherlock plug-in can update itself.
Sherlock search plugins can also be used (with minor modifications) in Mozilla's browser suites. These plugins are, appropriately enough, known as Mycroft project plugins (named after Mycroft Holmes, Sherlock Holmes' older brother). Among some of the changes made in the Sherlock file format is the separation of the automatic update element (which formed part of the <search> element) and the icon (provided in a separate file in Mozilla and part of the resource fork in Sherlock).
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