Search results invisible

[Hans Peeters 0]

When I type in search word(s) I get the answer 2 notes found and in which notebook. For example typing in Yahoo Finance

It does not tell me however where I can find it. I need to scroll the whole content of the notebook. In a notebook with 150 notes that's complicated. The note is highlighted but only be found by scrolling. Why not directly the note(s) on the display as a selection of results? Or am I doing something wrong?

 

[gazumped 11,666]

Hi.  Android? iOS? Mac? Windows? Web?

[PinkElephant 8,115]

Usually you search for something by entering the string (or search syntax code) into the search field and hit enter.

Then the middle panel will switch over to show the notes found. You can add columns to show the dates, notebook and tags as well.

In the left panel search only shows briefly some results below the search string field while you are still entering more characters to the search string. This is only a helping feedback, it is no search by itself.

[gregweir.hou 0]

Yeah, I have the same issue as Hans Peters.  The Search on IOS is lousy. As an example (similar to Hans); I search for a keyword that only appears in one of my 4 Notes I have on my iPhone. In the first screen it shows the Note where the keyword is listed. Kind of a caption with the title of the Note. NOT the actual word I was searching for.  If you click on the results presented you are just taken to the very top of the Note. You then have to scroll all the way down to where the keyword is highlighted. Don't scroll too fast or you can miss it. This is a P.I.A. for getting to search results quickly. Bad, bad User Experience.

When you use the desktop version, you just have to do a Command+F and you get a popup that shows how many instances of your keyword there is in that Note. And in the Note the first instance is shown and highlighted. Then just click arrows in the popup to toggle all of the results. As you click the up or down arrows, you jump to the next highlighted result. Easy-Peasy!

[PinkElephant 8,115]

What you mention are no search results, these are proposals for search items based on what you have typed up to this point into the search field.

Once you click none of them, you decide to abandon your initial search and go for the proposal.

To get to your search result fast and efficiently, type enough of it to nail down the search, then press Enter to start searching.

Good UI design (if you are willing to learn how to), and solid search results while online.

[Hans Peeters 0]

On 11/25/2021 at 10:22 PM, PinkElephant said:

Usually you search for something by entering the string (or search syntax code) into the search field and hit enter.

Then the middle panel will switch over to show the notes found. You can add columns to show the dates, notebook and tags as well.

In the left panel search only shows briefly some results below the search string field while you are still entering more characters to the search string. This is only a helping feedback, it is no search by itself.

Your solution doesn't really help. After finding the note and clicking on it a search with the full search string (i.e. "sns priverekening") does not bring me to the field I am looking for. I still have to scroll the full note to find it. What do I do wrong, or is this just the way it works. If so, it's not very user friendly.

[eric99 980]

1 hour ago, Hans Peeters said:

Your solution doesn't really help. After finding the note and clicking on it a search with the full search string (i.e. "sns priverekening") does not bring me to the field I am looking for. I still have to scroll the full note to find it. What do I do wrong, or is this just the way it works. If so, it's not very user friendly.

 

1 hour ago, Hans Peeters said:

Your solution doesn't really help. After finding the note and clicking on it a search with the full search string (i.e. "sns priverekening") does not bring me to the field I am looking for. I still have to scroll the full note to find it. What do I do wrong, or is this just the way it works. If so, it's not very user friendly.

You can search in the note with Ctrl F , still not an ideal solution, but it's better than scrolling the full note to find it.

[kimbabwe805 1]

2 hours ago, eric99 said:

 

You can search in the note with Ctrl F , still not an ideal solution, but it's better than scrolling the full note to find it.

I'm having this problem as my search may return 10 notes, but then I have to use Ctrl F within the each note (these are mostly PDF lectures for grad school) creating 10x the work. I'd love to hear a work around. I swear when I first started using Evernote, the note would jump right to the page with my search term automatically. 

[PinkElephant 8,115]

It is quite normal to have a note search, and then a in-Note search. The first one uses the search index EN builds to make it find the relevant notes. If the notes contain text or web clips, the search index can tell where the string is found, and it highlights it in the note (multiple times if it is found more than once).

If the string is hidden in an attachment, it is necessary to search for it in the attachment in a second step. To make this simpler, copy the search string from the first search, to have it ready to insert in the clipboard if a second search is needed.

[Hans Peeters 0]

19 hours ago, kimbabwe805 said:

I'm having this problem as my search may return 10 notes, but then I have to use Ctrl F within the each note (these are mostly PDF lectures for grad school) creating 10x the work. I'd love to hear a work around. I swear when I first started using Evernote, the note would jump right to the page with my search term automatically. 

At the end it works with 'command F', not 'control F'. It's not an easy nor user friendly solution. Searching does not only mean searching, but also finding... 

Finding would mean directly see the results of the search and not more than that! By the way, in the evernote help system there is not one decent explanation about how to search and how to find or not find.

[Hans Peeters 0]

16 hours ago, PinkElephant said:

It is quite normal to have a note search, and then a in-Note search. The first one uses the search index EN builds to make it find the relevant notes. If the notes contain text or web clips, the search index can tell where the string is found, and it highlights it in the note (multiple times if it is found more than once).

If the string is hidden in an attachment, it is necessary to search for it in the attachment in a second step. To make this simpler, copy the search string from the first search, to have it ready to insert in the clipboard if a second search is needed.

At the end it works with 'command F', not 'control F'. It's not an easy nor user friendly solution. Searching does not only mean searching, but also finding... 

Finding would mean directly see the results of the search and not more than that! By the way, in the evernote help system there is not one decent explanation about how to search and how to find or not find.

[eric99 980]

17 hours ago, PinkElephant said:

It is quite normal to have a note search, and then a in-Note search. The first one uses the search index EN builds to make it find the relevant notes. If the notes contain text or web clips, the search index can tell where the string is found, and it highlights it in the note (multiple times if it is found more than once).

If the string is hidden in an attachment, it is necessary to search for it in the attachment in a second step. To make this simpler, copy the search string from the first search, to have it ready to insert in the clipboard if a second search is needed.

This is indeed quite normal in this crappy implementation, but of course, this could be implemented as a single pass search for the user, underneath maybe split in two searches if needed.

[PinkElephant 8,115]

The 2 searches use different ways to approach the searched string.

The first, global one uses the search index of EN. Because it is indexed, it can search an entire database in a blink. This would not be possible if it searched inside of the attachments, one by one. It finds directly everything that is in the immediate reach of EN: Titles, Text, Tables, HTML-Content.

For attachments it has no direct address, just the attachment itself as a „container“. Once an attachment is opened, the search inside of this attachment does the last step. Because it is restricted to this single document, speed is not an issue.

If they would search both steps in one go, the local search in one attachment would be converted in searching in multiple locations. I don’t think this would be a good idea, looking at the general performance situation.

[eric99 980]

13 hours ago, PinkElephant said:

The 2 searches use different ways to approach the searched string.

The first, global one uses the search index of EN. Because it is indexed, it can search an entire database in a blink. This would not be possible if it searched inside of the attachments, one by one. It finds directly everything that is in the immediate reach of EN: Titles, Text, Tables, HTML-Content.

But the indexed search does include pdf and word documents. 

Therefore EN doesn't have to search each document individually while doing the global indexed search, but when you afterwards click a specific note in the result list, EN could automatically invoke the note search on that selected note and it's attachments. This is now left to the user to do this manually.

[gazumped 11,666]

9 minutes ago, eric99 said:

EN could automatically invoke the note search on that selected note and it's attachments.

They presumably could.  They don't.

10 minutes ago, eric99 said:

This is now left to the user to do this manually.

Yep.

I can see that a global search might - rather slowly - return thousands of hits across dozens of files and stepping from one to the next could take a very long time.  A higher level search is quicker and allows the user to identify a few possible targets immediately;  then to drill down for detail at more leisure.  However I'm only a user - your guess is as good as mine.  It's a feature request if you'd like more.

[eric99 980]

1 hour ago, gazumped said:

They presumably could.  They don't.

Yep.

I can see that a global search might - rather slowly - return thousands of hits across dozens of files and stepping from one to the next could take a very long time.  A higher level search is quicker and allows the user to identify a few possible targets immediately;  then to drill down for detail at more leisure.  However I'm only a user - your guess is as good as mine.  It's a feature request if you'd like more.

As a already mentioned, the indexed search does include pdf and word documents already. So today it already searches at full speed all notes and attachments.  Therefore EN doesn't have to search each document individually as you suggest, while doing the global indexed search. 

I only suggested that EN could automatically invoke the note search for highlighting the note attachments, once you click a note in the result list from the indexed search.

That said, I fully agree that there are many other defects with much higher prio to be resolved first before fine tuning this kind of workflows...

[mariajohns 0]

I also face the issue. But in web browser  , you can easily find by Short cut key Ctrl+F.