(Archived) Searching in evernote

[yogeshwersharma 1]

Hi there,

I am quite new to evernote, but I love the program. There are a couple things that annoy me (nothing is perfect), but I am sure there must be some way around to them. I did some searching in the forums, but did not quite get the right keywords.

* When I search for, say, mission, and the note contains the word sfmissionbay, then the note does not match. Actually, even worse, a note containing www.mission.com does not match either! Is there a way to change this behavior?

* On a similar note, is it possible to do regular expression search? If I wanted to match a word boundary, I would explicitly put something like '\' (vim syntax).

Thanks for reading,

~yogi

[jbenson2 2,147]

* When I search for, say, mission, and the note contains the word sfmissionbay, then the note does not match. Actually, even worse, a note containing http://www.mission.com does not match either! Is there a way to change this behavior?

In order to maintain Evernote's fast search results, the program indexes starting at the beginning of a word, not in the middle.

I'm not a computer expert, but based on the comments in this forum, I believe basic indexing without compression works like this:

• Evernote Index for the word Evernote creates 8 phrases
  
  • e, ev, eve, ever, evern, everno, evernot, evernote

Adding internal indexing is more computer intensive and would create 32 phrases

• e, v, e, r, n, o, t, e, ev, ve, er, rn, no, ot, te,eve, ver,ern, rno, not, ote, ever, vern, erno,rnot, note, evern, verno, ernot, everno, vernot, ernote, evernote
  

The Evernote API has more detailed information on search grammar at:

http://www.evernote.com/about/developer/api/

According to Evernote's Dave Engberg on Nov 17, 2010:

• "You can search for complete words and phrases, or search for prefix substrings at the start of words, but not for arbitrary character sequences in the middle of words or punctuation. We aren't currently planning to change this behavior."

[yogeshwersharma 1]

In order to maintain Evernote's fast search results, the program indexes the documents similar to the way Google does.

Searches begin at the start of a word, not in the middle.

According to Evernote's Dave Engberg on Nov 17, 2010:

• "You can search for complete words and phrases, or search for prefix substrings at the start of words, but not for arbitrary character sequences in the middle of words or punctuation. We aren't currently planning to change this behavior."

Thanks jbenson2. Good to know that!

Any suggestions for how to keep notes such that I can search for notes containing a particular website, for example? I do a lot of copying pasting of links from emails and it is hard to remember if the website had http:// in front of it or not. Actually, even the search string [www.miss] does not match [www.mission.com]. I don't quite understand now. So, [.] is either a word separator or not. If it is, the [mission] should match [www.mission.com] and if it is not a word separator, then [www.miss] should match [www.mission.com]. But neither [mission], not [www.miss] match [www.mission.com]. What I am missing in the semantics? Any pointers?

Best,

~yogi

[jbenson2 2,147]

Thanks jbenson2. Good to know that!

Any suggestions for how to keep notes such that I can search for notes containing a particular website, for example? I do a lot of copying pasting of links from emails and it is hard to remember if the website had http:// in front of it or not. Actually, even the search string [www.miss] does not match [www.mission.com]. I don't quite understand now. So, [.] is either a word separator or not. If it is, the [mission] should match [www.mission.com] and if it is not a word separator, then [www.miss] should match [www.mission.com]. But neither [mission], not [www.miss] match [www.mission.com]. What I am missing in the semantics? Any pointers?

I'm not sure what the correct answer is. Probably going to take a response from someone in a higher pay grade.

It was my understanding that the only word characters should be letters, numeric digits, and the underscore. I believe the comma is treated as punctuation.

Side tip:

If you want to find all notes that were pulled from the Drudge Report, you can search for:

• sourceURL:http://www.drudgereport.com/*

Unfortunately, some website do not require the www

• sourceURL:http://hotair.com/*

[yogeshwersharma 1]

If you want to find all notes that were pulled from the Drudge Report, you can search for:

• sourceURL:http://www.drudgereport.com/*
  

Thanks for your quick response. The sourceurl trick is helpful.

[jefito 5,589]

Any suggestions for how to keep notes such that I can search for notes containing a particular website, for example? I do a lot of copying pasting of links from emails and it is hard to remember if the website had http:// in front of it or not. Actually, even the search string [www.miss] does not match [www.mission.com]. I don't quite understand now. So, [.] is either a word separator or not. If it is, the [mission] should match [www.mission.com] and if it is not a word separator, then [www.miss] should match [www.mission.com]. But neither [mission], not [www.miss] match [www.mission.com]. What I am missing in the semantics? Any pointers?

In the Windows desktop, which is what I use, typing something like "www.dell.com" will produce an "All" search for words starting with "www", "dell" and "com"; in other words, you need a match on all of the words to succeed (you can see what Search is looking for by dropping down the search info bar, handy for checking out what Evernote thinks it's searching for). The words *should* be recognized even if there is a "www.dell.com" string in your note content; the '.' characters are treated as word separators. I say 'should', but it's possible that something is preventing it matching in your example, possibly even a bug. I did test, for example, with "ww.del.com", and this matched successfully in my case.

By the way, if you want to search for an exact match (e.g. "www.dell.com"), try enclosing the string in double quotes; it should be handled as one search string in that case.

The API search grammar is useful; this reference from the Knowledge Base is a bit more accessible: https://www.evernote.com/about/kb/article/advanced-search?lang=en

[yogeshwersharma 1]

In the Windows desktop, which is what I use, typing something like "www.dell.com" will produce an "All" search for words starting with "www", "dell" and "com"; in other words, you need a match on all of the words to succeed (you can see what Search is looking for by dropping down the search info bar, handy for checking out what Evernote thinks it's searching for). The words *should* be recognized even if there is a "www.dell.com" string in your note content; the '.' characters are treated as word separators. I say 'should', but it's possible that something is preventing it matching in your example, possibly even a bug. I did test, for example, with "ww.del.com", and this matched successfully in my case.

By the way, if you want to search for an exact match (e.g. "www.dell.com"), try enclosing the string in double quotes; it should be handled as one search string in that case.

The API search grammar is useful; this reference from the Knowledge Base is a bit more accessible: https://www.evernote.com/about/kb/article/advanced-search?lang=en

Hmmm... in my case (Mac), [dell] does NOT match [www.dell.com]. Possibly a bug?

Actually, when I search in a single note (command-F), then it does not match. When I search all notes (command-option-F), then it narrows down the list of all notes to the ones that match but does not highlight. I don't think this is the expected behavior. May be worth reporting as bug?

The exact match "exact phrase" idea is great. I have been using it. :-)

Thanks for the knowledge base link. Definitely helpful.

[jefito 5,589]

Hmmm... in my case (Mac), [dell] does NOT match [www.dell.com]. Possibly a bug?

Actually, when I search in a single note (command-F), then it does not match. When I search all notes (command-option-F), then it narrows down the list of all notes to the ones that match but does not highlight. I don't think this is the expected behavior. May be worth reporting as bug?

I think that it would be worth reporting, yes.

The exact match "exact phrase" idea is great. I have been using it. :-)

Thanks for the knowledge base link. Definitely helpful.

Glad to help out.

[yogeshwersharma 1]

Hmmm... in my case (Mac), [dell] does NOT match [www.dell.com]. Possibly a bug?

Actually, when I search in a single note (command-F), then it does not match. When I search all notes (command-option-F), then it narrows down the list of all notes to the ones that match but does not highlight. I don't think this is the expected behavior. May be worth reporting as bug?

I think that it would be worth reporting, yes.

I did report it by sending email to evernote. Thanks Jeff.