(Archived) BUG: EN Mac 3.3.0 inTitle Search Fails

[JMichaelTX 4,118]

BUG: EN Mac 3.3.0 inTitle Search Fails

When I enter "intitle:gold intitle:silver" (without the quotes) into the Search block, it CHANGES what I typed to "intitle:gold in title:silver".

In case you didn't notice, Evernote ADDED a SPACE after "in" in the second "intitle:" operator.

I tried this several times, and it is very repeatable.

I wasted about 30 minutes trying to figure out why the search was failing. I knew I had many matching notes, but it was returning none. The SMALL space between "in" and "title" is NOT very noticeable on the EN Mac screen.

Of course this causes the search to fail.

This is a MAJOR issue. Don't you guys test your code anymore??? This is a very OBVIOUS BUG.

It is getting to the point that I no longer trust Evernote.

Please put this bug fix at the TOP of your priority list for the next version.

In addition, searching has now become very, very slow due to the incremental search that runs the search after every character I type. This is just stupid. Please, please, give us an option to turn OFF incremental searching.

Environment:

• EN Mac 3.3.0
  
• Mac OS X 10.7.4
  

[GrumpyMonkey 4,320]

Hi JM. I'll give that a try today.

As for the incremental searching, Evernote is adding predictive searching based on the contents of your notes (introduced at ETC). While I have nothing against either, and I welcome the innovation, I am already beachballing every search on a brand new machine, and I try to avoid typing in searches anymore because of the lag.

Like the Windows client, I would greatly appreciate the ability to turn the features off.

[GrumpyMonkey 4,320]

A search for "intitle:journal intitle:thursday" worked fine for me. No space was added. Do you have spell correction on (Mac Preferences, Language, Text)? I turned it on and didn't get the space myself, but this is all I could think of that would do that to you. I am not seeing this, so maybe we need more information about this.

-----------

I'd like to return to this incremental search issue and stress that performance is suffering in OSX because of it. I had a lag of maybe thirty seconds the first time I tried to test your bug report, because when I got to "intitle:journal in" the search started to look for every instance of "in" in the notes. *sigh*

My longest beachball search to date? This morning. I clocked 5:07 (pulled out my iPhone and used the stopwatch to time it). I was trying to type in "theoretical framework amino" (without quotation marks) and foolishly paused after the "th". It was early in the morning and I wasn't on the ball -- pun intended Actually, the beachballing might well have gone on longer, but I forced the app to quit. My battery literally lost 4% of its charge during the time I was watching the app struggle to locate the search term I didn't even want to find. *sigh*

Over the last few weeks I've been timing searches on Windows, Mac, iPad, Android, and the Web trying to figure out a way to optimize my account. As you can probably tell by this post and others I have made in the past, I am struggling with an external brain that has grown very large and potentially powerful (it has a ton of really useful information in it), but rather unwieldy to use for various reasons. It's not necessarily an organizational issue, but a performance one. Searches don't return the results they ought to, searches take too long, initial syncs take several days, etc. I'll eventually post a thread here looking for ways to optimize things, because this obviously isn't an issue restricted to the Mac platform.

[JMichaelTX 4,118]

A search for "intitle:journal intitle:thursday" worked fine for me. No space was added. Do you have spell correction on (Mac Preferences, Language, Text)? I turned it on and didn't get the space myself, but this is all I could think of that would do that to you. I am not seeing this, so maybe we need more information about this.

I did have Mac OS Spell Correction turned on. More specifically, I had "Correct Spelling as you type" enabled.

While this is the underlying cause of the problem, there is also an Evernote issue.

Evernote has control of whether or not to allow the Mac spell check to apply to the Search expression field.

THE FIX: Evernote should turn OFF spell checking of the Search field.

I have confirmed that Evernote has control over the Mac Spell Check function by testing the following:

1. TextEdit -- Mac Spell Check is enabled, and produces the same result (changing "intitle" to "in title"
   
2. Google Search -- Text in the Search block is NOT spell checked
   

So Google was able to turn OFF the Mac Spell Check.

While we may be able to turn of Mac Spell Check at the system level, this is NOT an acceptable solution since it is needed in lots of other applications.

I'd like to return to this incremental search issue and stress that performance is suffering in OSX because of it. I had a lag of maybe thirty seconds the first time I tried to test your bug report, because when I got to "intitle:journal in" the search started to look for every instance of "in" in the notes. *sigh*

. . .

I am struggling with an external brain that has grown very large and potentially powerful (it has a ton of really useful information in it), but rather unwieldy to use for various reasons.

GM, I could not agree more. Both of these are serious problems that both of us, and others, have been reporting for several months now. I know I have made the point that Evernote Search is the 2nd half of the external Evernote brain. If we can't retrieve our info in Evernote in a quick, efficient, and error-free manner, then what is the point of putting out info into Evernote.

[Jackolicious 808]

Both concerns are noted. Thanks guys!

[JMichaelTX 4,118]

Both concerns are noted. Thanks guys!

Thanks Jack. I really hope your post is not just a courteous one, but means that you guys are taking a serious look at fixing these issues.

I am now over 5,000 notes and the incremental search is now always causing a big slowdown. The Search box can't even keep up with my typing, and I now always get the "waiting for response" Mac Beachball. I think Evernote will become unusable before I get to 10,000 Notes, which will probably be in about 6 months.

[GrumpyMonkey 4,320]

Both concerns are noted. Thanks guys!

Good news. My search speeds have improved greatly since deleting all of my saved notebooks. The longest beachballs I get nowadays last about 15 seconds.

Bad news. I had to delete all of my saved notebooks. LOL.

Well, I have 10,000+ and careful use of the search box (don't type in it -- copy/paste) and saved searches keeps me from beachballing most of the time. It also appears to help if I don't join shared notebooks. Obviously, this is not what Evernote had in mind with the design, and I am sure Jack is taking our concerns seriously.

[Jackolicious 808]

They are both really really noted. Don't worry!

[JMichaelTX 4,118]

. . . careful use of the search box (don't type in it -- copy/paste) and saved searches keeps me from beachballing most of the time.

I suspect that the primary search use case by a long shot is just typing text into the Search box.

If this doesn't work well, then, my guess, is that many, many millions (out of the 30 M+) users are affected.

We must be able to type into the Search without ANY beachballing.

To remain viable, Evernote must (IMO) always be able to fulfill its main mission:

1. Get our info into Evernote quickly and accurately.
   
2. Get our info OUT OF Evernote quickly and accurately (this would be Searching )