(Archived) Retain search terms when moving between notebooks

[jbkc 0]

I often search for a term in a particular notebook. When I don't find it, then I typically switch

to search in "all notebooks", but then I have to reenter my search terms again.

I'd like it if my search terms would be retained even though I change the notebook(s) in which I am searching.

[BurgersNFries 2,407]

This would be cumbersome when people are doing different searches. I would suggest, if the search is very long, simply copy/paste the search terms or make it a saved search, if you use it often.

[Ppar 0]

what's easier?

typing out your entire search again? or just deleting your search if you want to start a new one?

I think the later.

[BurgersNFries 2,407]

what's easier?

typing out your entire search again? or just deleting your search if you want to start a new one?

I think the later.

Or...you could simply search all notebooks to begin with. It makes much more sense to clear the search, since most of the time, people are going to be doing a different search. Copy/paste isn't really that difficult, if you want to redo the same search. It's just as easy as deleting the search. So it's not really a question of what's easier but rather what is going to be the normal behaviour. Unless you're terribly inefficient, a majority of the time, when doing a search, the search criteria will differ from the previous search.

[Jay Levitt 0]

The right answer to a feature request is rarely, if ever, "you should have done it the other way". BnF, think of it this way: The report is not "I can't search all notebooks easily"; the report is that "I frequently find myself wanting to extend a search to all notebooks".

Personally, I think Evernote's behavior is both standard and logical - and yet it's annoying. I recently switched from OmniFocus to Things. OF's design is analytically rigorous; I can intuit the underlying database from its UI. I can build a correct mental model, which we've always said is the key to intuitive UI. Things, OTOH, is more... impressionist. There's a design and a reason for everything, but it's much more right-brained.

As a programmer who wants a GTD-style Trusted System, you'd expect I'd like OF better, but the reality is that Things just *feels* right. And recently I was surprised to realize why searching was easier in Things: it completely ignores the sidebar when you search. All searches are done across all projects and lists. That's horrible! That's unexpected! That's... that's what I wanted it to to do. Who knew?

I don't think that'd work for Evernote; there are too many people that use multiple notebooks to partition information. But what WOULD work is if, below the search results for the current notebook, Evernote also displayed the results from all notebooks - at least if there were no results in the current notebook. Think about it: Under what circumstances would you do a search, find no results, and not want Evernote to look somewhere else? I can't think of any scenarios where this is worse than the current behavior. BnF, what do you think?

[BurgersNFries 2,407]

As a programmer who wants a GTD-style Trusted System, you'd expect I'd like OF better, but the reality is that Things just *feels* right. And recently I was surprised to realize why searching was easier in Things: it completely ignores the sidebar when you search. All searches are done across all projects and lists. That's horrible! That's unexpected! That's... that's what I wanted it to to do. Who knew?

Or...you could simply search all notebooks to begin with.

I don't think that'd work for Evernote; there are too many people that use multiple notebooks to partition information. But what WOULD work is if, below the search results for the current notebook, Evernote also displayed the results from all notebooks - at least if there were no results in the current notebook. Think about it: Under what circumstances would you do a search, find no results, and not want Evernote to look somewhere else? I can't think of any scenarios where this is worse than the current behavior. BnF, what do you think?

I think it's easier to search all notebooks to begin with, just as you say Things does. (shrug) And if it's not, it's probably because the search is much too generic (IE, looking for the word 'were'.) This can go both ways. You search all notebooks & end up with 100 results, so you need to narrow the search down to a single notebook.

I can see the viability of EN showing options in other notebooks, if no results are in the current notebook. (It's certainly much more reasonable than defaulting each "new" search to the previous search.) But then maybe that's why I'm only searching a particular notebook...because I want to exclude notes from the other notebooks & is why I have certain notes in different notebooks in the first place.

This issue boils down to having to re-enter the same search words when doing the same search twice in a row, regardless if you're expanding your search from one notebook to all, restricting your search from all notebooks to one or doing the same search in a single, but different notebook. And I think copy/paste is pretty easy to use.

[SaraS 5]

I'm assuming this is about the Mac client since it is the mac forum. And...you can already do this in the mac client!! Just make sure you're displaying the search explanation at the top, do your search, and then use the pop-up menu within the search explanation to change notebooks. This changes the notebook but retains the search terms.

Actually I just checked and this works in the Windows Client too. (the 3.5 one, it wasn't in 3.1).

[BurgersNFries 2,407]

I'm assuming this is about the Mac client since it is the mac forum. And...you can already do this in the mac client!! Just make sure you're displaying the search explanation at the top, do your search, and then use the pop-up menu within the search explanation to change notebooks. This changes the notebook but retains the search terms.

Actually I just checked and this works in the Windows Client too. (the 3.5 one, it wasn't in 3.1).

Thanks, Sara, for pointing this out!

[jbkc 0]

I'm assuming this is about the Mac client since it is the mac forum. And...you can already do this in the mac client!! Just make sure you're displaying the search explanation at the top, do your search, and then use the pop-up menu within the search explanation to change notebooks. This changes the notebook but retains the search terms.

Actually I just checked and this works in the Windows Client too. (the 3.5 one, it wasn't in 3.1).

======================

Sara - Thank you! I hadn't thought of this...