(Archived) More complex search with AND/OR-equivalent operators

[logandb 228]

I'm trying to create a search of the following type:

tag:coffee AND (Turkish OR Greek)

...to search for items with 'Turkish' or 'Greek' in the note, but only if tagged with 'coffee'. In the Windows app, however, the 'any:' operator at the start of a search applies to all search terms and this:

tag:coffee any: Turkish Greek

...doesn't function as I intend, instead including the keyword 'any' rather than considering it as an operator.

Any ideas?

---

David.

[Sam Spencer 1]

Evernote's argument (which I disagree with) is that "( a AND b ) OR (c AND d)" is so complex that only a very few power users would understand how to use it. Therefore, it is NOT worth the development effort for such a few users.

I think Evernote is grossly underestimating the ability of its users…

Even if they are right, it’s very important to keep power users happy. We are important evangelists for any tech we use. Evernote needs to impress me before I can wholeheartedly recommend it to anyone else. And all of us understand and use mixed logic in other applications — we know that it’s not that big a technological deal. So it’s really quite a disappointment every time I re-discover that Evernote (still) can’t do this.

Totally agree with this. I don't want to tell my friends "Hey evernote is a really useful tool for searching through your notes! except the search is really clunky."

I would love to have this feature as well. I was just trying to do the search either intitle:A or tag:B and -tag:C But like the OP stated the -tag:C Any:title: tag: does not work as one would expect.

If full Boolean searches might be too hard to implement across the platforms, can we somehow combine a searches? I see two possibilities.

1) Allow the searches to be ctrl clicked like the tags. So I'd have one search any: intitle:A tag:B The other search would be -tag:C Then set it up so that the ctrl click feature will combine the two searches with an AND operator.

2) Create searches from searches. I see this one being a little more flexible because it could be default AND but then an "any:" would change it to an OR. A "search:" advanced search operator would need to be added and would be used like the other operators. For example search:A search:B would search for both A & B. If this was added you could use searches in combination with other operators.

Just a few thoughts. I would really like one of these to be implemented. Thank you.

Combining searches this way would be a fantastic solution! It even makes it obvious to beginner users. In fact I'd dare say being able to ctrl-click saved searches and combine them in this way would

a ) make a lot more sense than the half-assed way it combines them at the moment (try making a saved search that looks in notebook A for tag B and another that looks in notebook C for tag D and try ctrl-clicking them... uuuugh)

b ) be more consistent with the way ctrl-clicking works in the other items in the left panel

[JMichaelTX 4,118]

It's been pretty clear for a while that the Evernote Search Grammar needs to be updated.

Providing full Boolean support is just one example.

[grotesque 7]

I don't buy the comment that complex search would scare away users.

My personal opinion is that sizeable number of evernote customers are ppl who are not very organized(like me).

I have tons of info thrown at me daily, complex info. Arranging them by TAG and notebooks so that I can find them easily is impossible due to complexity.

Adding special sequence/code in every note so that I can find it later is tedious.

Evernote is awesome app. but when you reach 3000 notes, it becomes a swirling vortex of entropy(quoting sheldon cooper).

Other apps who offer regx + substring search start to look good now.

[Martin Packer 162]

@grotesque I agree...

The ability to go

(a and or (c and d)

doesn't prevent a user from using (and understanding)

a and b

so I don't think the introduction of more expressive search syntax is going to put anybody off. Now, introducing Regular Expressions... :-)

[JMichaelTX 4,118]

Evernote's argument (which I disagree with) is that "( a AND b ) OR (c AND d)" is so complex that only a very few power users would understand how to use it. Therefore, it is NOT worth the development effort for such a few users.

I think Evernote is grossly underestimating the ability of its users. A large number of today's users grew up in the personal computer age. IAC, Boolean logic is not that difficult to understand with just a few good examples.

[ptim 13]

Boolean may scare "normal" users, but the Saved Search feature feels pre-pubescent without it.

I doubt this audience needs convincing. The Evernote team probably does, though. Any input on why this feature isn't live?

I agree with the sentiment that boolean will probably scare the majority of users.

I'd cite google as an example of boolean enabled search which doesn't seem to hinder many...

[Big Cloits 3]

Evernote's argument (which I disagree with) is that "( a AND b ) OR (c AND d)" is so complex that only a very few power users would understand how to use it. Therefore, it is NOT worth the development effort for such a few users.

I think Evernote is grossly underestimating the ability of its users…

Even if they are right, it’s very important to keep power users happy. We are important evangelists for any tech we use. Evernote needs to impress me before I can wholeheartedly recommend it to anyone else. And all of us understand and use mixed logic in other applications — we know that it’s not that big a technological deal. So it’s really quite a disappointment every time I re-discover that Evernote (still) can’t do this.

[roschler 158]

You can now do searches that mix AND/OR and NOT logic together with BitQwik 2.0, a free app for Windows Evernote users. Mac users that have Parallels or VMWare Fusion should be able to run it too:

Disclosure: I am the author

-- roschler

[GrumpyMonkey 4,320]

You can now do searches that mix AND/OR and NOT logic together with BitQwik 2.0, a free app for Windows Evernote users. Mac users that have Parallels or VMWare Fusion should be able to run it too:

http://discussion.ev..._20#entry174749

Disclosure: I am the author

-- roschler

Great!

But, please do not post the same message in multiple threads. In my neck of the woods, we call that spam, and we don't take too kindly to that, especially when you have such a cool service to offer. This was dearly missing from Windows!

[roschler 158]

My apologies (times 10) GrumpyMonkey. My only intent was to reach those users that are following a few of the top Boolean logic threads that are spread out across several forums. I was afraid that they would not see this solution otherwise. Feel free to delete what you find offensive. Again, very sorry, I meant no harm.

-- roschler

[GrumpyMonkey 4,320]

My apologies (times 10) GrumpyMonkey. My only intent was to reach those users that are following a few of the top Boolean logic threads that are spread out across several forums. I was afraid that they would not see this solution otherwise. Feel free to delete what you find offensive. Again, very sorry, I meant no harm.

-- roschler

The harm has already been done! I've had to read the message multiple times

Change it up a little bit. That's all I ask. Otherwise, we get a forum full of spam, and you know I hate scrolling all the way to the end of a message on my phone just to find out it is something I have already read!

It is cool what you have done -- and if my admonishments in any way have bumped your cool product up in the forums, well... I'll send you my paypal account particulars later

Just kidding, of course.

[roschler 158]

The harm has already been done! I've had to read the message multiple times

Change it up a little bit. That's all I ask. Otherwise, we get a forum full of spam, and you know I hate scrolling all the way to the end of a message on my phone just to find out it is something I have already read!

Yes, definitely. Note, I am not cross-posting my apology to the other threads since I'm guessing that would only compound the problem. Please accept this reply for the other threads.

-- roschler

[GrumpyMonkey 4,320]

The harm has already been done! I've had to read the message multiple times

Change it up a little bit. That's all I ask. Otherwise, we get a forum full of spam, and you know I hate scrolling all the way to the end of a message on my phone just to find out it is something I have already read!

Yes, definitely. Note, I am not cross-posting my apology to the other threads since I'm guessing that would only compound the problem. Please accept this reply for the other threads.

-- roschler

You know I am posting half in jest, right? Just to reiterate -- good job with the service. I am looking forward to hearing how it works for folks.

[roschler 158]

You know I am posting half in jest, right? Just to reiterate -- good job with the service. I am looking forward to hearing how it works for folks.

Thanks for adding that kind comment GrumpyMonkey.

-- roschler

[Owyn 457]

So unless the grammar itself is changed, there is zero chance of this happening in Evernote search.

Yeah. And I have probably used all the "contrived circumstances" (stacks, prefixed tags, temporary tags).

[roschler 158]

@Sam Spencer,

BitQwik can do the mixed logic searches you want to do and you can use natural language to do it. It's a free app that can do a lot of searches with your Evernote notes that Evernote can't do alone. It also has a Tag Exploration tool with fuzzy text matching capabilities:

http://bitqwik.com/

Disclaimer: I am the author of the app.

-- roschler

[Sam Spencer 1]

@Sam Spencer,

BitQwik can do the mixed logic searches you want to do and you can use natural language to do it. It's a free app that can do a lot of searches with your Evernote notes that Evernote can't do alone. It also has a Tag Exploration tool with fuzzy text matching capabilities:

http://bitqwik.com/

Disclaimer: I am the author of the app.

-- roschler

Hi, I tried it out already - nice app! but really what I want is a way to have this in my saved searches within evernote - partly so I can quickly pop up my items (from notebook A and tagged (B or C)) or (from stack D and (tagged (B or C) and tagged E)) on my android phone - which will show me my at-work to-do list - also I don't find the "natural language" approach useful when I'm trying to define a very specific search like that - I tried typing in with brackets and it didn't seem to work. I had to fiddle a bit with the order of my wording to get what i wanted.

As I say very clever app though, it's just not for me

Many thanks

Sam

[jbenson2 2,149]

Well, since you don't want the:

1.) "half-assed way" or

2.) the 2-step saved search or

3.) the 3rd party solution,

your remaining choices are to either use the Evernote "clunky" search as is, or find a different program.

[roschler 158]

@Sam Spencer,

Hello Sam. I understand that the hard core boolean logic folk like yourself will not take to BitQwik. This reply is not an attempt in any way to convince you to use the product. I am just addressing the sentiment in your post that indicates BitQwik had trouble implementing the logic of your query. It does not. This is happening because as you said, you don't like using natural language queries and prefer a "short-hand" technique. I took your exact query, removed the parentheses, and simply added the expected grammatical elements to make it a correct sentence and BitQwik parsed it perfectly the first time. Here's what I entered:

from my Marketing notebook and tagged with Robots or Skype or from Evernote Stack Notebook stack and tagged with Robots or Skype and tagged with Green

As you can see, if you translate the A, B, C, D and E elements symbols in your sample query to the actual Tags and Notebooks from my notebook store, the implied Boolean logic of my query is identical to yours. Here is what BitQwik generated as a result of the query:

Hopefully you will get what you want from the Evernote staff. If enough people ask for it I'm sure they will provide. For those people that want to be able to do complex boolean logic queries using the more natural and easy to understand approach of plain English sentences, there's BitQwik.

-- roschler

[Sam Spencer 1]

@Sam Spencer,

Hello Sam. I understand that the hard core boolean logic folk like yourself will not take to BitQwik. This reply is not an attempt in any way to convince you to use the product. I am just addressing the sentiment in your post that indicates BitQwik had trouble implementing the logic of your query. It does not. This is happening because as you said, you don't like using natural language queries and prefer a "short-hand" technique. I took your exact query, removed the parentheses, and simply added the expected grammatical elements to make it a correct sentence and BitQwik parsed it perfectly the first time. Here's what I entered:

from my Marketing notebook and tagged with Robots or Skype or from Evernote Stack Notebook stack and tagged with Robots or Skype and tagged with Green

As you can see, if you translate the A, B, C, D and E elements symbols in your sample query to the actual Tags and Notebooks from my notebook store, the implied Boolean logic of my query is identical to yours. Here is what BitQwik generated as a result of the query:

Hopefully you will get what you want from the Evernote staff. If enough people ask for it I'm sure they will provide. For those people that want to be able to do complex boolean logic queries using the more natural and easy to understand approach of plain English sentences, there's BitQwik.

-- roschler

Thanks for your reply I hope you don't think I was being disparaging about your program - and thankyou for the demonstration, that does make it much clearer to me how I would need to phrase my query to get the desired results! I have just been playing around with it a little further and one thing I hadn't worked out earlier was the logical difference between saying "in my Robots notebook or my Mecha notebook" and saying "in my Robots or Mecha notebooks" - one of which effectively splits the logic at that point and the other does not. (not sure if that's the right way to put it but perhaps I'm not as hardcore as you'd think )

Happy new year!

[roschler 158]

Thanks for your reply I hope you don't think I was being disparaging about your program - and thankyou for the demonstration, that does make it much clearer to me how I would need to phrase my query to get the desired results! I have just been playing around with it a little further and one thing I hadn't worked out earlier was the logical difference between saying "in my Robots notebook or my Mecha notebook" and saying "in my Robots or Mecha notebooks" - one of which effectively splits the logic at that point and the other does not. (not sure if that's the right way to put it but perhaps I'm not as hardcore as you'd think )

Hello Sam,

I just tried both your searches but with my Notebook names as substitutes and they both parsed fine. Are you using an older version? The current version is 2.3.0.39. If you are inclined, please download the latest version and try those searches again. If one of them doesn't work, please use the Report A Bug button to send me a report. You may have found a phrase variation that I need to add to BitQwik but as I said, both variations worked for me when I just tried it.

And of course, Happy New Year!

-- roschler

[Martin Packer 162]

Just want to wish @roschler a Happy New Year! And relax in the knowledge you've evolved the "State Of The Art" regarding Evernote! Hope you get to take your programs on to greater things.

[roschler 158]

Hello Martin,

Just want to wish @roschler a Happy New Year! And relax in the knowledge you've evolved the "State Of The Art" regarding Evernote! Hope you get to take your programs on to greater things.

Wow, what a nice sentiment and a great way for me to start the new year, thanks! I wish you too great success in whatever projects you undertake this year.

-- roschler

[TomF 0]

Evernote team please add OR to searches...Please!!!! -

 

I tried Bitqwik, it looks very powerful, but it's not my cup of tea

[BurgersNFries 2,407]

Evernote team please add OR to searches...Please!!!! -

 

I tried Bitqwik, it looks very powerful, but it's not my cup of tea

Or searches already exist in EN. It's the combo of and/or that does not.

[TomF 0]

Excellent, then I must be overlooking how to add an OR

 

Here's my current saved search

tag:7.Jul-W1 tag:7.Jul-W2 tag:7.Jul-W3  tag:7.Jul-W4 tag:7.Jul-W5

 

All of the tags are ANDed, what is the syntax for ORing these 5 tags?

[TomF 0]

@BurgersNFries - I just chatted with support- ORing in saved searches is not possible - here's what they said

 

"Karl: Unfortunately, this search option is not available on Evernote. I'm really sorry. I can forward this along as a suggestion to our development team. Would that help?"

[BurgersNFries 2,407]

Excellent, then I must be overlooking how to add an OR

 

Here's my current saved search

tag:7.Jul-W1 tag:7.Jul-W2 tag:7.Jul-W3  tag:7.Jul-W4 tag:7.Jul-W5

 

All of the tags are ANDed, what is the syntax for ORing these 5 tags?

 

 

 

@BurgersNFries - I just chatted with support- ORing in saved searches is not possible - here's what they said

 

"Karl: Unfortunately, this search option is not available on Evernote. I'm really sorry. I can forward this along as a suggestion to our development team. Would that help?"

 

 

I just created a saved search to search for anything tagged with "favorites" or "add to ccpmtinfo" & it worked just fine.

 

any: tag:"add to ccpmtinfo" tag:favorites

[jefito 5,598]

@BurgersNFries - I just chatted with support- ORing in saved searches is not possible - here's what they said

 

"Karl: Unfortunately, this search option is not available on Evernote. I'm really sorry. I can forward this along as a suggestion to our development team. Would that help?"

BurgersNFries is correct. Please refer to the Knowledge base article: http://evernote.com/contact/support/kb/#/article/23245321. Order is important; if used, any 'notebook:' or 'stack:' term must come first, followed by an 'any:' term (if used), followed by the rest.

[jefito 5,598]

Hmmm. Not sure how you managed to get the copyright symbol.

Now do you see?

[jbenson2 2,149]

The Evernote search grammar supports either:

• a global intersection (AND) of conditions
  or
  a global union (OR) of conditions via "any:".
  

There's no way to mix AND and OR operations for arbitrary boolean logic to show notes using the method you described.

You could put all of the relevant notes temporarily into the same notebook, since the "notebook:" clause is independent of the rest of the clauses:

• notebook:Coffee any: Turkish Greek

Matches all notes in the "Coffee" notebook that have the word "Turkish" or the word "Greek" in them.

[logandb 228]

Good idea - thanks!

---

David.

[MartinPacker 2]

Sounds like the predicate grammar could use a warm over.

Martin

[FactMan 196]

At some point in the future it might be rather nice to have full Boolean search capabilities .... It would certainly reduce the need to separate things out into another folder and search on single words. Flights of fantasy are a strong point for me ...!

[logandb 228]

+1 on this from me.

Search is really what Evernote is all about, in my view. It's pretty straightforward to store a multitude of electronic notes anywhere (e.g. Google Docs, text documents in Dropbox, etc.), but being able to locate a specific note in a short time is the real selling point of Evernote. Canny tagging and categorising is fine in general, but sometimes a small subset of notes needs to be extracted using a simple data mining approach.

---

David.

[MartinPacker 2]

SQL is a good model - for the geeks amongst us.

Meanwhile I could just unload (part of) the database to .enex and run some smart code to query further. But not what I had in mind. :-)

Martin

[skywinston 1]

Boolean may scare "normal" users, but the Saved Search feature feels pre-pubescent without it.

Evernote users would benefit tremendously from a boolean-based Saved Search builder:

1. Notebooks break down pretty quickly. Does this article on the new iPad go into my "Apple" Notebook or my "I Want" Notebook? It could be either.
   
2. Although you can highlight more than 1 tag at a time to filter your search results, having multiple tag selections as a saved search would let you narrow your context with the click of a button.
   

I doubt this audience needs convincing. The Evernote team probably does, though. Any input on why this feature isn't live?

[jefito 5,598]

Please distinguish between searches and Saved Searches, which are just plain old searches that are persisted in Evernote. Searches do support Boolean operations, either AND (the default) or OR (use the any: search operator), but no mixing of AND and OR. If you're really clever, you can fabricate mixed AND/OR searches for particular cases, but that's for extra credit.

Re search builder: You can already do simple search building by Ctrl+Clicking on items in the Attributes and Tags list; These add search terms. In the search explanation panel you can then select Any/All to select whichever style you prefer (translates to AND/OR). This feature is live in the Windows client (or at least in the latest beta), today.

[GrumpyMonkey 4,320]

I would also like to see more robust search features.

But, to be fair, the search grammar and the implementation (keeping searches active as a kind of filter while you rummage through your notes) is quite a bit more advanced than most other products. If you don't know about some of these advanced searches (https://support.evernote.com/ics/support/KBAnswer.asp?questionID=535), you may want to clip the page and stick it into your Evernote account for future reference.

[dlu 628]

Boolean may scare "normal" users, but the Saved Search feature feels pre-pubescent without it.

Evernote users would benefit tremendously from a boolean-based Saved Search builder:

1. Notebooks break down pretty quickly. Does this article on the new iPad go into my "Apple" Notebook or my "I Want" Notebook? It could be either.
   
2. Although you can highlight more than 1 tag at a time to filter your search results, having multiple tag selections as a saved search would let you narrow your context with the click of a button.
   

I doubt this audience needs convincing. The Evernote team probably does, though. Any input on why this feature isn't live?

I agree with the sentiment that boolean will probably scare the majority of users. I think that's the biggest reason we haven't prioritized it thus far. I think the requirements for finding it useful are: 1. You're a computer science geek and 2. You have large sets of data that is already structured and organized and 3. You'll want to slice and dice that data in different ways. So while I'm geeky enough to at appreciate mixing Any and Or in searches, I lack the other two requirements and wouldn't really use it.

What might be a better way to look at is is how can we make search or browse more useful for even the average user to find various pieces of data

[jefito 5,598]

What might be a better way to look at is is how can we make search or browse more useful for even the average user to find various pieces of data

Yeah; the Ctrl+Click method is not all that discoverable, though once you do discover it, it's darned handy...

[FactMan 196]

I agree that the concepts behind Boolean searching are a little difficult for those not familiar with this kind of search engine. However, it should not be beyond the capabilities of a computer geek to come up with an advanced search option that would allow selection of tags or words with an AND or an OR operator hidden behind the scenes. Thus, AND means that the 'hits' must contain all of the of the words; OR means the 'hits' must contain one or more of the words. NOT means that the 'hits' must not contain the word/words that are in that group.

Disclosure: I am not affiliated with Evernote in any way, other than that I pay my $45 each year for the premium version. However, I do use Boolean searching in my work almost every day, and actually prefer it to the method of searching that most search engines seem to use.

[jefito 5,598]

Just to be clear: Evernote does support Boolean searching, and has since I started using it. Evernote search is wholly AND by default. Put in a combination of search terms (text, tag, 'intitle:' date operators, etc), and all conditions must match for a note to be put in the result list. If however you add the 'any:' operator, the search becomes wholly OR: any of the conditions must match to put a note into the result list. Mix in the fact that some of the search operators can be negated (e.g. '-tag:') and you have NOT capability.

However, the search grammar is limited, and does not support a full Boolean algebra for combining search terms. In general you cannot mix AND and OR, and not can only apply to individual search terms (and only some of them). There are no operators for grouping Boolean sub-clauses (e.g. "A AND NOT(B OR C)", though note that if B and C are negatable in Evernote, this transforms to "A AND NOT( B ) AND NOT( C ), thank you Augustus DeMorgan, which is expressible in the Evernote search grammar).

[Owyn 457]

Jeff. You really managed to hit the emoticon gremlin on that last post. B ) © ( C ).

Hmmm. Not sure how you managed to get the copyright symbol.

[jefito 5,598]

Yeah. And I have probably used all the "contrived circumstances" (stacks, prefixed tags, temporary tags).

No surprise there.

[Owyn 457]

Yep.

[May 268]

You know what feature would be cool to have in terms of search? Searching for something and getting results even when the search string doesn't exactly match your notes but is still very close, it's similar to how I can search google with lots of typos and still get all the results instead of having to be 100% exact.

Also somewhat related idea - user defiened synonyms for search

About mixing AND with OR/ANY - I could see it being useful in some cases but it's not an essetial feature because you can always just do multiple searches and then switch between them (search history is very handy on iPad for this)

[idoc 411]

Is there any way to conduct a search, get your "hits" and then narrow it down by searching further through the hits? Also, it may be useful to see the exact number of "hits" for any particular search. This helps you to know if you should just sift through the results or revise the search to be more accurate. Currently, I can only guesstimate how many hits I get by looking to see how short or long the scroll bar thingymajig is on the results window.

[Owyn 457]

Is there any way to conduct a search, get your "hits" and then narrow it down by searching further through the hits? Also, it may be useful to see the exact number of "hits" for any particular search. This helps you to know if you should just sift through the results or revise the search to be more accurate. Currently, I can only guesstimate how many hits I get by looking to see how short or long the scroll bar thingymajig is on the results window.

Already does this on both the web and windows clients. Which client are you referring to?

[dlu 628]

I agree that the concepts behind Boolean searching are a little difficult for those not familiar with this kind of search engine. However, it should not be beyond the capabilities of a computer geek to come up with an advanced search option that would allow selection of tags or words with an AND or an OR operator hidden behind the scenes. Thus, AND means that the 'hits' must contain all of the of the words; OR means the 'hits' must contain one or more of the words. NOT means that the 'hits' must not contain the word/words that are in that group.

Disclosure: I am not affiliated with Evernote in any way, other than that I pay my $45 each year for the premium version. However, I do use Boolean searching in my work almost every day, and actually prefer it to the method of searching that most search engines seem to use.

Yeah I wasn't saying it wasn't possible, just unsure if it is the most effective way of using our engineering resoures. Just because of the amount of effort needed to add it to each platform (or at least a handful of platforms) compared to the number of people who would use it.

[Martin Packer 162]

@jefito Minor piece of trivia: Augustus De Morgan founded my Maths Department (UCL) so maybe I fail all the tests of "normal user". Can we do this with drag and drop Karnaugh maps? :-)

Martin

[Martin Packer 162]

@dlu Is there a widely-used platform you could prototype ideas for better search on? Then - when, presumably, the users of that platform have welcomed it - you could build the case for rolling out wider.

Anyhow, enough said: You, at least, in Evernote Development know there's much room for improvement here.

Martin

[idoc 411]

Please distinguish between searches and Saved Searches, which are just plain old searches that are persisted in Evernote. Searches do support Boolean operations, either AND (the default) or OR (use the any: search operator), but no mixing of AND and OR. If you're really clever, you can fabricate mixed AND/OR searches for particular cases, but that's for extra credit.

Re search builder: You can already do simple search building by Ctrl+Clicking on items in the Attributes and Tags list; These add search terms. In the search explanation panel you can then select Any/All to select whichever style you prefer (translates to AND/OR). This feature is live in the Windows client (or at least in the latest beta), today.

Could you explain this a bit more? What do you mean by "Ctrl+Clicking" on items in the Attributes and Tags list? And what do you mean by the Attributes list? Thanks,

[jefito 5,598]

Could you explain this a bit more? What do you mean by "Ctrl+Clicking" on items in the Attributes and Tags list? And what do you mean by the Attributes list? Thanks,

In the Windows client, look at the left panel; it has Notebooks at the top, Tags underneath that, and Attributes underneath that. They're all openable trees. You can select a notebook, a tag or an attribute by clicking on one in their respective lists/trees. With tags and attributes, you can Ctrl+click (hold down the Ctrl key while clicking), which will add it to the current search operation, rather than replacing it, as clicking on it does. Note that this does not work for notebooks; you can only search on one notebook (or one stack, or All Notebooks) at a time.

[prjorgensen 3]

I, for one, want more powerful searching syntax available to me. I want to be able to view all of the notes not in certain notebooks that don't have certain tags, for example. As I store more data in Evernote I need more flexibility in how I get to that data.

This is one of the two killer features Evernote still lacks IMHO. The other is the ability to view tags from the List view in Mac OS X.

[Johnny McClung 10]

I would love to have this feature as well. I was just trying to do the search either intitle:A or tag:B and -tag:C But like the OP stated the -tag:C Any:title: tag: does not work as one would expect.

If full Boolean searches might be too hard to implement across the platforms, can we somehow combine a searches? I see two possibilities.

1) Allow the searches to be ctrl clicked like the tags. So I'd have one search any: intitle:A tag:B The other search would be -tag:C Then set it up so that the ctrl click feature will combine the two searches with an AND operator.

2) Create searches from searches. I see this one being a little more flexible because it could be default AND but then an "any:" would change it to an OR. A "search:" advanced search operator would need to be added and would be used like the other operators. For example search:A search:B would search for both A & B. If this was added you could use searches in combination with other operators.

Just a few thoughts. I would really like one of these to be implemented. Thank you.

[JMichaelTX 4,118]

If full Boolean searches might be too hard to implement across the platforms, can we somehow combine a searches? I see two possibilities.

Those are some very creative solutions.

But I'm pretty sure that the underlying Database is a SQL DB which fully supports Boolean searches.

The challenge is for the EN app to provide a UI that is easy for the user to specify his/her search criteria, and then translate that into the proper SQL statements.

The use of the "any:" term and the negative symbol (like "-tag:<TagName>") to mean NOT are actually Boolean terms.

So, since the Evernote search syntax already supports partial Boolean search, it is not clear why they don't just enable FULL Boolean search.

[jefito 5,598]

If full Boolean searches might be too hard to implement across the platforms, can we somehow combine a searches? I see two possibilities.

The Evernote search grammar is what it is: the grammar just doesn't allow mixed AND/OR searches (except for certain contrived circumstances), and all Evernote searches use the grammar under the hood. So there's no back door way to combine valid Evernote searches to produce mixed AND/OR searches in the way that you proposed, since any result, in order to be usable by Evernote, must necessarily be a valid Evernote search expression.

So unless the grammar itself is changed, there is zero chance of this happening in Evernote search.