Open Radar

 
On iOS9, the CSSearchableItemAttributeSet class describes the various attributes of items indexed by CoreSpotlight. It has more than 100 properties, loosely grouped by categories. The exact meaning of each attribute, however, isn’t explained. In particular, the behaviour of Spotlight regarding each attribute is not documented.

Steps to Reproduce:
Lookup the documentation for CSSearchableItemAttributeSet, for example, the “subject” property. (currently visible at https://developer.apple.com/library/prerelease/ios/documentation/CoreSpotlight/Reference/CSSearchableItemAttributeSet_Class/index.html#//apple_ref/occ/instp/CSSearchableItemAttributeSet/subject )

Expected Results:
The doc should explain how and when this text will be used in the Spotlight UI, if it’s searchable, and the various other properties it’s related to.

Actual Results:
The full text of the documentation reads: “The subject of the document”, which isn’t that helpful.

Version:
https://developer.apple.com/library/prerelease/ios/documentation/CoreSpotlight/Reference/CSSearchableItemAttributeSet_Class/index.html

Notes:
Reading the docs, it really looks like metadata attributes from several fields have been merged into a single object. While this may be convenient for apps whose type of item just fits in the model, it’s only cumbersome for the others. I’d believe that a shorter, but more generic set of attributes, with clear interactions, would be more useful.

(Other than that, it’s really cool to be able to provide Spotlight results. Thanks a lot for this!)