how to "find within note" todo/checkbox?

[drivera 1]

how to "find within note" todo/checkbox?

dont want to do anything special with checkboxes, just want to find them within a single note like you can for text within a single note.

see image:

notice how it counts how many instances of the found items? how can this be done/what is the syntax to find checkboxes/todo items?

[jbenson2 2,146]

I put checkboxes at the top of my notes for fast visibility and use the search term:

todo:false

[drivera 1]

thank you jbenson2, but iwas not talking about using the search box, but rather the find within note function when you hit ctrl-f

[jefito 5,588]

No way that I know of -- in-note find is text only as far as I can tell.

[emerick 155]

Jeff's correct, find-in-note is text only.

[DanB1969 0]

More generally, is there any way to search for todo checkboxes and just display a list of the text associated with the checkboxes? Rather than the current todo:false which just lists every note which contains an unchecked box.

[jefito 5,588]

More generally, is there any way to search for todo checkboxes and just display a list of the text associated with the checkboxes? Rather than the current todo:false which just lists every note which contains an unchecked box.

Not in the Evernote client, no. You might check the Trunk for third-party programs that do so, but I don't know of any.

[Jim Horng 1]

+1 for search todo in-note

[TerryB 2]

+1 for the ability to separately list or at least find to-do boxes within a note

[Christer 0]

+1 for being able to aggregate and filter out todo checkboxes in a note 

[rhgaspar 0]

Seems odd that contextual search like "find the next unchecked checkbox" is not supported.  This question going back to 2012 remains unanswered unless you consider "cant do it" an answer.

[mmeredith 1]

I'll also offer a +1 for this feature. 

I put todo items in my notes and have a search that shows me a list of all notes with unchecked boxes.

I like being able to have my todos in the context of the meeting I'm taking notes on, for instance.

Or to have the todo in a note with all the related emails, web pages and comments that I'm gathered so far to carry out the todo action.

So I want to be able to search for notes with unchecked boxes ( I can do this) and then within the note search for the unchecked box to see the details of what I need to do next. Often a note where I record the outcomes of a recurring meeting will have many checked boxes for completed todos and a few unchecked boxes for the uncompleted ones. I'd like to be able to find the unchecked ones without scanning the note visually.

[jhsoper 0]

I too would love to be able to search within a note for unchecked todo boxes.

Instead I use "[_]" and "[X]" for unchecked and checked todo boxes.  This way I CAN search within a note for things that remain undone! ;) 

[Jim Horng 1]

+1

[John Dickerson 0]

+1

This is useful when you are sharing the note and want a colleague to take care of the to-do list.

[Dave-in-Decatur 2,885]

There is a semi-functional version of this available in the current version of the Web client beta (https://www.evernote.com/client/web). At the top of the list of notes there is a dialog for filters (funnel icon); under the Contains tab, this includes filtering for lists. Unfortunately not only filters for checkboxes but for bulleted and numbered lists, so you may have to go through a lot of false hits.

[John Dickerson 0]

+1

This is useful when you are sharing the note and want a colleague to take care of the to-do list.

[Nomadic 9]

On 10/30/2018 at 3:18 PM, jhsoper said:

I too would love to be able to search within a note for unchecked todo boxes.

Instead I use "[_]" and "[X]" for unchecked and checked todo boxes.  This way I CAN search within a note for things that remain undone!

Hmm, this doesn't work for me, but wish it did.

 

[Nomadic 9]

On 1/26/2018 at 7:02 PM, mmeredith said:

I'll also offer a +1 for this feature. 

I put todo items in my notes and have a search that shows me a list of all notes with unchecked boxes.

I like being able to have my todos in the context of the meeting I'm taking notes on, for instance.

Or to have the todo in a note with all the related emails, web pages and comments that I'm gathered so far to carry out the todo action.

So I want to be able to search for notes with unchecked boxes ( I can do this) and then within the note search for the unchecked box to see the details of what I need to do next. Often a note where I record the outcomes of a recurring meeting will have many checked boxes for completed todos and a few unchecked boxes for the uncompleted ones. I'd like to be able to find the unchecked ones without scanning the note visually.

Yes, well stated. I, too, could definitely use a feature that will conduct a "search within the note for the unchecked boxes". 

You might be interested in a workaround I discovered today that's quite serviceable: I picked the term "dothis" (without quotes & no spaces) to place after check boxes I created in a doc & before the words that described what I needed to do.

I selected that particular term (after experimenting with others) as there are almost no such instances of this letter combo found in my 22k notes that bring up unintended references. (It only showed up on two notes re plant diseases.)

It was easy to use the search for dothis for ALL notes, then once I selected the note I wanted, I could easy search within any particular single note, too, with the dothis phrase.

When a task was completed, I simply checked the box & also deleted the dothis phrase. 

Thus, this method can allow anyone to search all notes & then within single notes without having to scan the note visually.

This now solves my problem going forward but, of course, isn't useful for all the docs created before this date. Thus, it's still just a workaround - yet I'm delighted to have something that improves my experience henceforth. I hope this helps others.

 

[TerryS 13]

Hello, I know this thread is super old, but, here is my workaround.

Out of my 25,000 and more notes, I have 190 with open checkboxes.

I want to clean these--the ancient lists that expired long ago.

Moving forward, when I create a check box I add TDTD, which stands for "to do to do" so I can search for open checkboxes *and* tdtd.

But for the old notes...now and then when I clean up my Evernote I search for open checkboxes, sort by date and open the oldest 10 notes.

One by one, I copy the whole note and paste it into MS Word. The checkboxes become [].

When I search for those in Word, I find the words near the checkbox, and I search for those words in the note.

At some point my Evernote will be clean and active checkboxes will have TDTD in them that lets me search within the note without the copy/paste into Word.

 

[TerryS 13]

Now, rather than type "dothis" or "TDTD," I type [] space _

Evernote turns [] into a tickbox when I press space, and _ is fast to type.

I search for incomplete "incomplete to dos" and _ and I'm done. Evernote highlights the _ and I know where every tickbox is.

[PinkElephant 6,733]

There is a new search function, the CONTAINS parameter. It can be used to search for checkboxes and lists, among other elements:

contains:enTodo

contains:list

https://help.evernote.com/hc/en-us/articles/208313828

[TerryS 13]

Hello PinkElephant!

That is how I find notes with unchecked boxes. I use CONTAINS incomplete to-dos.

The problem in this thread is how to find the unchecked box within the note.

If the note is simple, I can see the tickboxes but sometimes I cannot find them by eye among all the words.

Nomadic uses "dothis" and until recently I was using "TDTD"  as something searchable within the note.

But I find it easy to create the tick box and a searchable marker as I type without have to do finger gymnastics for the box and multiple characters for the marker.

Now I can turn a sentence into a tickbox and know that I will find it again.

Cheers, T