Search Scope should be ordered

[tftio]

It would be very useful if "Search Scope" was a list, rather than a set or bag, and the order in the UI was preserved in the search results; e.g. if I want to have the contents of $HOME/Applications show up earlier than the contents of /Applications in the results list, I should drag it above /Applications in the UI. 

[Andrew]

It would be very useful if "Search Scope" was a list, rather than a set or bag, and the order in the UI was preserved in the search results; e.g. if I want to have the contents of $HOME/Applications show up earlier than the contents of /Applications in the results list, I should drag it above /Applications in the UI. 

 

There are a few reasons why this isn't possible... firstly, OS X's metadata query server takes a scope list but ignores the order. Alfred could pass the search scope in a specific order and it would be ignored.

 

Alfred then gets a subset of the most relevant results passed back which he subsequently applies his own knowledge to which ensures that the most relevant (learnt over time) result is at the top for the typed term. This subset means subsequent ordering would miss non relevant results, and forcing ordering based on scope would prevent Alfred's internal knowledge from being used to do any ordering... which would make the result order less useful for all other use cases.