Why does spotlight search for “term” result in AquaTerm before Terminal

I rans a few tests in 10.8.2. My empirical results show that spotlight returns results for partial matches when the start of the name matches, but not any part of the name. I have not found a way to change this.

I have another challenge with multiple word searches. My empirical experience is that a filename search containing multiple words (separated by spaces) yields results only if the search words are contiguous in the filename. For example:

Given some files with these names:
xxx rules and roles yyy.zzz
aaa roles and rules bbb.ccc

• a search for {roles} or {rules} will find both files
  (note: the braces are included here for clarity; they are not part of the search string)
• a search for {rules and roles} will find the first file only;
• a search for {roles and rules} will find the second file only;
• a search for {roles rules} or {rules roles} will find nothing;

I find this last behaviour frustrating, as I don't want to have to remember the word order in my filenames. And one-word searches get too many hits.

Anyone with answers for this?

You can use HoudahSpot to search multiple locations.

HoudahSpot is an advanced front-end to Spotlight. It lets you build complex queries to search metadata stored in the Spotlight index.

In the HoudahSpot "Query Pane" you will find a "Where…" section. Here you can specify which locations / drives / folders to search. There is also an "Exclude…" section where you can specify folders to ignore. E.g. you could search your Home folder, but ignore results from the ~/Library folder.

Full disclosure: I am the developer of HoudahSpot