(Archived) Possible to search the text that goes with a todo checkbox?

[TXShawn 0]

I have exhausted my efforts in searching for an answer to this, so my apologies if it exists here and I didn't find it.

I am one of the thousands upon thousands of people who like the todo list functionality EN provides. I am aware they never intended it to be used for this purpose, but they gave us an interface that is lovely for doing just that and it isn't unreasonable to ask for enhancements to let us do what we want to do.

I keep a daily checklist for simple, stupid little things like "go to the gym". As horribly inefficient as this may sound to you, I create a new note for every day based off a template of standard checklist items. This has worked beautifully for me for months and months.

But I am a data mining junkie, and what would be really great for me would be the ability to not just search for checked checkboxes (todo:true), but search for specific checked checkboxes. Doing todo:true just gives you any note that has a checked box in it, and I can't find any way to search for notes with checked "go to the gym" checkboxes because it appears the todo item is independent of the text surrounding it.

Am I missing some functionality here? Or am I going to be forced to find a different workflow here if I want to mine this data?

[Metrodon 2,184]

I don't believe this is currently supported

[gazumped 11,666]

Off the top of my head, and without any testing, seems to me this should be possible - though whether the effort is worth it is up to you...

How about searching for the phrase 'go to the gym' and moving all those notes temporarily to a new notebook. Then search within that notebook for your "todo:true"?

[TXShawn 0]

Yeah I have tried that and the problem still comes that if I have more than one checkbox in a note it's going to give me any note with any checkbox checked. So if I check into work on foursquare every day, but I don't get to the gym every day it's going to show me all the notes.

I'm thinking it may just be easier to replace all my checkboxes with a 1 or a 0, then I can just search "1 - go to the gym" and get all the notes where I went. It's just not as pretty or as functional as a checkbox...

[gazumped 11,666]

Ouch - yes, hadn't thought it through that far.. Metrodon was right; there's just no option to do this. You could still do the 'go to the gym' search, but you'd have to go through and tag each note where you ticked the box. I'd suggest tagging completions is quicker than adding a code.. You'd then have the advantage that your stat tags would keep a running count for you - 'go to the gym (25)'

[TXShawn 0]

I tried the tag route for a few weeks, but it just doesn't work for me; too many items in my checklists and it generally interferes with my non-todo tags. Thanks for the assist, I am glad to know I didn't just miss something in the search capability. Think I will just convert from checkboxes to 1 or 0. Keeps my psychotic way of organizing things moving the same and just isn't as pretty.