(Archived) Question on searches with updated:

[jmengate 1]

Hi, I'm relatively new to EN searches on the PC and have a question. I notice some strange results when using the "updated:" search item. I'm just trying to find any notes in a given notebook update today. So my query if for that notebook with a criteria of the following:

notebook:"Daily Diary" updated:day

Where "Daily Diary" is the notebook I'm trying to search. However, I noticed that only some notes are showing. Ie there are notes that have an updated date of today that aren't showing. Any ideas on if I'm doing something wrong?

Thanks

[jbenson2 2,146]

Can you find the missing notes with:

notebook:"Daily Diary" created:day

[jmengate 1]

Yes, they do show up with that query. Unfortunately, it also pulls in other notes that I don't want. Very odd.

[jbenson2 2,146]

Yes, the Evernote search for "today" items is quite crippled in my opinion.

If you modify the created date to a date in the future, the created:day search will pull in today's stuff and all the future stuff as well. The solution, which has been promised by Evernote for 3 years (also known by Evernote as "coming soon"), is to add a Due Date field.

You could add a date prefix (yyyy-mm-dd) to your Evernote title, but that would be very tedious and unlikely to remember for updating notes.

Searching for today's notes (entire day) is klunky. I've developed a way around it, which involves a special Evernote note (a today / tomorrow separator) that has a Created Date time for tonight at 11:59pm. In order to make it run porperly, I have to change it manually every day.

I share your pain.

[catbert 36]

Yes, the Evernote search for "today" items is quite crippled in my opinion.

Wait, are you saying there are bugs in the search-by-date facility? Because I certainly haven't found any. Is this a well-known problem?

As for the original poster, one "gotcha" that can confuse new users is that sometimes you can have a previous search still "active" in the search box; then, when you type in "updated:day" you are actually adding that criterion to the previously active ones, leading to a misleading result. For example, if you click in the tag list in the favorites bar to search by a tag, this search IS NOT SHOWN in the search box. So then it is quite easy to add "updated:day" to the (empty) search box and think that you are searching for ALL notes updated today, but in fact your previous tag search is still active and you will only see the appropriately tagged notes which were updated today. Does that make sense? (It's a bit hard to explain.) Is it possible that something like that might be happening?

[FactMan 196]

The only other way around it would be to use "created:day -created:20121019" (where the number is tomorrow's date), but of course, that is a pain with having to change the -created date every day. Does achieve what you want, though?

[jmengate 1]

Thanks all for your responses. I think that gives me enough to get a workaround of some type or another to get what I want.

[BurgersNFries 2,407]

I'm just trying to find any notes in a given notebook update today.

I just sort the results by updated date in descending order. Anything updated today is listed at the top.

[jbenson2 2,146]

Yes, the Evernote search for "today" items is quite crippled in my opinion.

Wait, are you saying there are bugs in the search-by-date facility? Because I certainly haven't found any. Is this a well-known problem?

Yes, Evernote is aware of the bug in their search. That is why they wanted to create a Due Date column.

It is easier to explain using the Created Date column. Assume it is noon time. There is no "relative date/time argument" search that will show all of today's notes. You can either search for the activities scheduled for the future (including this afternoon) or the past activities.

As Factman mentioned, modifying an "absolute date/time argument" search to tomorrow's date on a daily basis works. It will pull up all of today's activities plus past activities. I'd like to put that up in my favorite's bar and manually change the date each day, but searches don't work there.

-created:20121019

Here is a post from the Evernote CTO back two years ago agreeing there was a problem.

His solution works for the web, but not for the Windows client.

As you can see, he was anticipating the release of the Due Date column.

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Re: Saved Search Grammar for "today plus the past"

by engberg on Mon Oct 04, 2010 6:14 pm

We're adding '+' to the grammar in anticipation of due dates, so you'll be able to do:

-created:day+1

I think it already works that way on the web, but we're adding it to the clients.

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[catbert 36]

Yes, Evernote is aware of the bug in their search ...

I think we may be talking at cross-purposes here. In the light of what you've written, I don't see evidence of any "bug" in the search. What you are talking about is more a limitation in the way that the search works. Would that be correct?

Specifically, is there any known bug that could be causing the problem observed by the original poster in this thread?

Cheers, catbert

[jmengate 1]

"It is easier to explain using the Created Date column. Assume it is noon time. There is no "relative date/time argument" search that will show all of today's notes. You can either search for the activities scheduled for the future (including this afternoon) or the past activities."

Thanks for the explanation. I've been playing with this the last few days and am able to get what I want now. It isn't intuitive (at least to me), but it gets me what I need.

Thanks all

[catbert 36]

@jmengate, glad you've got a work-around.

Originally you wrote: "However, I noticed that only some notes are showing. Ie there are notes that have an updated date of today that aren't showing." Did you find out what was going wrong? In other words (and I am repeating myself here), is there any known bug that could have caused your problem?

[jmengate 1]

@catbert, I'm somewhat hesitant to call it a bug being a new user. I would say that intuitively it seems to work a little differently than I would expect. ie If I look in a folder and manually sort on the updated field I would expect that all of those with a date of today would show up if I use either "updated:day" or "updated:yyyymmdd". However, for some reason some of the notes are missing. It may be that these notes are ones that have been created today that I haven't updated (though this field is populated correctly in the view), but I'm not sure. From a functional standpoint, it doesn't work as I would expect but not sure that this constitutes a bug per se.

Thanks!

[catbert 36]

Yep, that looks like a bug to me! I'm seeing the same unexpected behaviour. I'm documenting it now and will submit a support ticket for it.

Anyone else: Is this a known problem?

[catbert 36]

Looking closer, it appears that the "missing" notes are those which were created today but not modified after they were created (most of my web clippings come under this category).

Using "Show Note Info (F8)" to look at the "created" and "updated" times, the missing notes do not display any "updated" field. Presumably, that is why the "updated:day" search is not finding them.

In other words, the "updated:" search appears to only finds notes which have actually been updated after creation. If they have not actually been updated, then they will not appear in the search results.

I find this counter-intuitive, but I'm not sure whether it counts as a bug or not - is this is the way "updated:" is supposed to work?

Work-around: to find all notes which have been either created or updated today, try this:

any: created:day updated:day

[catbert 36]

Wow, found another "gotcha":

The search "created:day" finds, as expected, all notes created today.

The search "any: created:day" finds all notes created today including deleted notes in the Trash!

Again, this seems counter-intuitive to me; not what I would have expected at all.

So the suggestion in my previous post, to use "any: created:day updated:day" in fact returns all notes which have been created or updated today, including those that have subsequently been deleted.

[catbert 36]

The Knowledge Base article on Evernote's advanced search operators (http://evernote.com/contact/support/kb/#/article/23245321) says about the "updated:" operator:

This operator behaves exactly the same way as the created: operator described above, except it deals with the date a note was most recently modified. If a note hasn't been modified since it was created, this date will be the same as the created date.

This does not appear to be correct. It appears to me that if a note hasn't been modified, then the "modified date" will be absent and searches using the "updated:" operator will fail to find such a note.

Please correct me if I'm missing something here ...

[catbert 36]

Wow, found another "gotcha":

The search "created:day" finds, as expected, all notes created today.

The search "any: created:day" finds all notes created today including deleted notes in the Trash!

Again, this seems counter-intuitive to me; not what I would have expected at all.

So the suggestion in my previous post, to use "any: created:day updated:day" in fact returns all notes which have been created or updated today, including those that have subsequently been deleted.

Just an update to say that this problem with "any:" was apparently a known bug in Evernote for Windows version 4.5.8, and it is fixed in later versions.

[fmorondo 3]

I have the same problem.

I keep some notes in a kind of pre-trash notebook, and I have a "-updated:week-4" search to select the notes that go to the actual trash. As noted in this thread, this doesn't work with notes not modified after their creation (and surprisingly for me, although I understand the rationale, moving o tagging a note doesn't change the "updated" date), which appear in the search even if they have been created today.

And, perhaps related to the comment by the CTO that Reaver brought up, the search works fine in the Web client.

[roschler 158]

fmorondo,

I have the same problem.

I keep some notes in a kind of pre-trash notebook, and I have a "-updated:week-4" search to select the notes that go to the actual trash. As noted in this thread, this doesn't work with notes not modified after their creation (and surprisingly for me, although I understand the rationale, moving o tagging a note doesn't change the "updated" date), which appear in the search even if they have been created today.

And, perhaps related to the comment by the CTO that Reaver brought up, the search works fine in the Web client.

I think you mean the iilustrious jbenson2 not Reaver. Reaver is his forum user category title, not his forum user name.

-- roschler

[dbvirago 452]

The Knowledge Base article on Evernote's advanced search operators (http://evernote.com/contact/support/kb/#/article/23245321) says about the "updated:" operator:

This operator behaves exactly the same way as the created: operator described above, except it deals with the date a note was most recently modified. If a note hasn't been modified since it was created, this date will be the same as the created date.

This does not appear to be correct. It appears to me that if a note hasn't been modified, then the "modified date" will be absent and searches using the "updated:" operator will fail to find such a note.

Please correct me if I'm missing something here ...

Came to search on this exact same problem and per the knowledge-base entry above it doesn't work. Like the OP, I want to see only those notes created or updated today. Yes, I could sort (if that works correctly) but what I am trying to end up with is a sort of report using updated:day to show things I touched today. Any progress on this 'bug' or another workaround. Any third party solutions?

 

Thanks

[catbert 36]

Hi dbvirago,

 

My workaround suggested in post #15 above works for me (Windows client 4.6.7.8409):

any: created:day updated:day

This will give you anything created or updated today. I keep this as a saved search on the Favorites bar. (I actually use "day-1" rather than "day" but that's obviously a personal choice.)

[dbvirago 452]

Thanks, that worked as far as it goes. What I was really shooting for is this search in a specific notebook. It would be nice if a search worked on the notebook I highlight, but it seems to only work on all notebooks. If I use the notebook tag with the any tag, then that becomes part of the and logic.

 

BTW, is there a good and complete guide to the search syntax? 

[catbert 36]

Hmmm, this seems to work for me:

notebook:Main any: created:day updated:day

but it doesn't work if the "notebook" specifier appears after the "any:". Let us know if that helps!

[catbert 36]

Here is a search grammar document: http://dev.evernote.com/doc/articles/search_grammar.php

 

Cheers, catbert.

[dbvirago 452]

Missing something. This search returns every note in the notebook. 

 

notebook:"Tasks, Projects, etc" any: Created:Day Updated:Day

 

I'll read through the docs

[catbert 36]

Note that I am using the Windows client version 4.6.7.8409 ... are you using something different? Maybe there's some inconsistency between clients?

 

I just tested on the web client and it works for me, even with the "notebook:" specifier at the end of the search string!

[dbvirago 452]

I'm on v5. I'll give it a try on the web client. Meanwhile, just going to the notebook and sorting. Would be nice if sorting would be by notebook and not global

[Mike McGowan 36]

Missing something. This search returns every note in the notebook. 

 

notebook:"Tasks, Projects, etc" any: Created:Day Updated:Day

 

I'll read through the docs

I am running v 5.2.0.    This works for me -- "notebook:CompletedTasks any: created:day updated:day".

 

One comment, one question:

* Comment -- I could not get this to work until I renamed my folder from "Completed Tasks" to "CompletedTasks" -- I am running this from script.

* Question -- Why doesn't a note that is moved from one folder to another show up as an update?    When I finished an item, I made no other change than to move it to this folder.    The query I have above does not include those notes in the search result.      If I Open note and change manually change the updated date (true for either a note that has never been updated or one that was updated prior to the current date).

 

I would have expected changing the folder to be an *update*.    Has anyone else "intercepted" the move action and scripted an update?

 

TIA

[jefito 5,586]

Missing something. This search returns every note in the notebook. 

 

notebook:"Tasks, Projects, etc" any: Created:Day Updated:Day

 

I'll read through the docs

I am running v 5.2.0.    This works for me -- "notebook:CompletedTasks any: created:day updated:day".

 

One comment, one question:

* Comment -- I could not get this to work until I renamed my folder from "Completed Tasks" to "CompletedTasks" -- I am running this from script.

If you have spaces in your notebook name, you'd need to double-quote it somehow, e.g. notebook:"Completed Tasks" any: created:day updated:day. When you say that you are running from a script, do you mean ENScript.exe?

* Question -- Why doesn't a note that is moved from one folder to another show up as an update?    When I finished an item, I made no other change than to move it to this folder.    The query I have above does not include those notes in the search result.      If I Open note and change manually change the updated date (true for either a note that has never been updated or one that was updated prior to the current date).

 

I would have expected changing the folder to be an *update*.    Has anyone else "intercepted" the move action and scripted an update?

From what I understand, some changes to a note's metadata do not count as updating the note, per Evernote rules. Changing notebooks may be one of them. I seem to recall that Evernote employee dlu mentioned this recently, but I can't lay my hands on the reference; maybe I'll be able to find it later on.

[Mike McGowan 36]

Yes, I the "script" is calling ENscript.exe.    Right now it's just a batch file, but planning on moving to something else....perhaps Python.

 

The Batch file seems to require quotes around the entire query string -- /q  "notebook:CompletedTasks any: created:day updated:day"  no amount playing with single double quotes would work.

 

I had not seen the notebook change not triggering the note meta data update, but that does seem to be the behavior.   If I found this documented somewhere, I will share on this topic.

[jefito 5,586]

Yes, I the "script" is calling ENscript.exe.    Right now it's just a batch file, but planning on moving to something else....perhaps Python.

 

The Batch file seems to require quotes around the entire query string -- /q  "notebook:CompletedTasks any: created:day updated:day"  no amount playing with single double quotes would work.

 

I had not seen the notebook change not triggering the note meta data update, but that does seem to be the behavior.   If I found this documented somewhere, I will share on this topic.

Yes, the query string must be quoted (double quotes, I think); that's for the purpose of delineating the entire search string. If you need quotes internal to the search string (required to delineate, say, a notebook or tag name that contain spaces), you'd use escaped double quotes: use double quotes as before, but put a backslash character before each of them. For example:

 

  /q  "notebook:\"Completed Tasks\" any: created:day updated:day"

 

Re the updated change: I don't know that for certain, but I seem to recall that Evernote employee dlu recently made a comment on some internal discussions about what constitutes an update (or maybe the criteria for changing the updated date), or something related. I don't know whether that covers this case, though. I'll see if I can find it.

[Mike McGowan 36]

Thanks Jefito -- adding the "\" did work and *now* remember having read that on the Search Grammar page--http://dev.evernote.com/doc/articles/search_grammar.php

 

Thanks again.