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(Archived) Why this can't be searched?


neilli1992

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Hi, 

I have a note whose title is : "ELEC207 Questions:"

 

When I enter "207 question" as the key words, Evernote can't even find it.

WHY? I'm very confused, I thought my keywords are highly relevant and precise, why it just can't find.

I've encountered such situations a few times, quite annoying.

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Hi, 

I have a note whose title is : "ELEC207 Questions:"

 

When I enter "207 question" as the key words, Evernote can't even find it.

WHY? I'm very confused, I thought my keywords are highly relevant and precise, why it just can't find.

I've encountered such situations a few times, quite annoying.

Evernote does not search for arbitrary occurrances. It searches for words or the beginning of words. A word consists of sequential letters, numbers & the underscore. Everything else is a delimiter.

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Ha I never figured out why I couldn't search for simple stuff ...good info Burger ...bad work Evernote ( use a open-source search plugin that problem has been solved 100x :)

This was done by design. I'd guess it helps to make search faster on the multiple platforms that they support (it allows them to pre-build indexes). It's also somewhat like web search: if I search for, say, "LostNomad3111", then I find your posts in this forum. If I search for "3111"... well, you can probably guess what I don't find... :)

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I hesitate to reply to posts like this, for some reason people enjoy arguing my justified opinion.

 

Your example makes since jefito, in the context of text on billions of pages ...but in my notebook if I search for 311 I want to see every thing about 311 rather it's the band, lostnomad311 or nomad311.

 

I have 2000+ notes not 2,000,000,000 + indexed pages. This is why I said bad work ...rather that decision was made in requirements gathering or a senior dev saying do it this way, that restriction doesn't match the domain or primary use case: A person looking for a note they wrote and wants to save time by not looking through all there notes, just the ones containing xxx

 

...FTR its interesting to see an Evangelist with the opinion that Evernote right , loyal users wrong. I say loyal in that I have brought you all new users at every place I've worked over the past 3 years from them watching me use it for work.

 

bad work on that post buger dude ...with replies like those you're setting a negative public image of what you 'love?'

 

( I have unsubscribed from this post ...I have unsubscribed from this thread in an effort to make the world a better less-hostile place )

 

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I hesitate to reply to posts like this, for some reason people enjoy arguing my justified opinion.

 

Your example makes since jefito, in the context of text on billions of pages ...but in my notebook if I search for 311 I want to see every thing about 311 rather it's the band, lostnomad311 or nomad311.

 

I have 2000+ notes not 2,000,000,000 + indexed pages. This is why I said bad work ...rather that decision was made in requirements gathering or a senior dev saying do it this way, that restriction doesn't match the domain or primary use case: A person looking for a note they wrote and wants to save time by not looking through all there notes, just the ones containing xxx

 

...FTR its interesting to see an Evangelist with the opinion that Evernote right , loyal users wrong. I say loyal in that I have brought you all new users at every place I've worked over the past 3 years from them watching me use it for work.

 

bad work on that post buger dude ...with replies like those you're setting a negative public image of what you 'love?'

 

( I have unsubscribed from this post ...I have unsubscribed from this thread in an effort to make the world a better less-hostile place )

 

 

You call your opinion "justified".  And it is.  But that doesn't mean Evernote's position is any less justified.  So why is "arguing" your opinion any worse than you "arguing" someone else's?  You are using the terms "right" & "wrong".  That's simply not true.  It is what it is.  I don't know why users seem to have a tendency to turn "Evernote does not do that" (especially when posted by an evangelist) into "Evernote is right & Evangelists will support them no matter what."  If you can shed your knee jerk reaction, you will see Jeff & I are simply posting what Evernote has chosen to do.  That may or may not work for you.  (shrug)  That's why there's chocolate & vanilla.

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I hesitate to reply to posts like this, for some reason people enjoy arguing my justified opinion.

I'm not arguing with you. I'm just reporting what I know to be true (plus some side guesses as to why that might be a choice that Evernote could make).

 

...FTR its interesting to see an Evangelist with the opinion that Evernote right , loyal users wrong.

It's baffling to me why you would think that I am saying any such thing. Just because Ireport what I know to be true isn't what you want, I am not in any way saying that you (or any user) are wrong.

( I have unsubscribed from this post ...I have unsubscribed from this thread in an effort to make the world a better less-hostile place )

I'm sorry that you feel that way, but any hostility that you perceive is not from me. Even if I had disagreed with you (I didn't), disagreement is not in and of itself hostility, nor even automatically a bad thing.
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I find it ironic that a program designed to "remember everything" has such a rudimentary search function. The windows client needs an advanced search function like the android version.  I'm sure most users aren't even aware of the proper syntax to enter in the search bar to achieve the desired results.  A menu-driven advanced search function would make searching much easier for the casual or not technically adept user.

 

I agree that it would be great if you could perform a partial string search - that didn't have to start at the begin of a word. Often, I have to perform several searches to achieve the desired result. 

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I find it ironic that a program designed to "remember everything" has such a rudimentary search function. The windows client needs an advanced search function like the android version.  I'm sure most users aren't even aware of the proper syntax to enter in the search bar to achieve the desired results.  A menu-driven advanced search function would make searching much easier for the casual or not technically adept user.

Evernote for Windows used to have such a facility. I lamented its loss in the V5 betas, but it's never come back. It was really useful for some of the more esoteric search functionality -- I never could get the resource: items correctly.

 

I agree that it would be great if you could perform a partial string search - that didn't have to start at the begin of a word. Often, I have to perform several searches to achieve the desired result.

Sure, it would be useful. That and regular expression search.

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I think many users use Evernote as a personal storage tool to collect and save a lot of information they are interested in.

However, after a long long time, human's memory will fade. At last what remains in our brain is nothing more than some vague clues or fragmented phrases\words.

 

There is no possibility that I can still remember the exact way that I arranged those sentences.

In my situation, although what I wrote in my note is "ELEC207 Question", but after maybe one month, all I remember finally is that I did have a note related to course code 207, there is no way I can remember if I put it as "ELEC207" or with a space as "ELEC 207".....   Actually I tried again, ELEC207 won't be searched, but with a space, ELEC 207 can.

 

Evernote's search function should serve as bridge connecting with human's unreliable and long-term memory fragments with our previously collected information. It shouldn't depend on the exact way of how we arrange the text.

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BTW, have you tried Listary, a local search tool, that can search all files in your computer disks.

That search function is much similar as what I expect.

 

If I have a file in the path: D:\documents\school\course\ELEC207\moduleInfo.doc

 

I can even find this document with key words like:

school\info

course\module

207\info.doc

 

I don't even have to type the whole word:

sch\modu

cour\info

ool\fo.doc

 

all these key words will pull it out to me. That's what I mean, that's what finally remains in human brains.

Evernote team should really try this software: Listary.

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I think many users use Evernote as a personal storage tool to collect and save a lot of information they are interested in.

However, after a long long time, human's memory will fade. At last what remains in our brain is nothing more than some vague clues or fragmented phrases\words.

There is no possibility that I can still remember the exact way that I arranged those sentences.

In my situation, although what I wrote in my note is "ELEC207 Question", but after maybe one month, all I remember finally is that I did have a note related to course code 207, there is no way I can remember if I put it as "ELEC207" or with a space as "ELEC 207"..... Actually I tried again, ELEC207 won't be searched, but with a space, ELEC 207 can.

Evernote's search function should serve as bridge connecting with human's unreliable and long-term memory fragments with our previously collected information. It shouldn't depend on the exact way of how we arrange the text.

Please read or re-read the post I linked to in post #5 by Dave Engberg, CTO of Evernote. This doesn't scale well when you're dealing with gigabytes of data. My main database is over 37 gigs. Additionally, when organizing, you do have to set some ground rules. IE, when organizing paper, you need to know if your cell phone bill is under C for cell, M for mobile, P for phone, T for telephone or V for Verizon. Otherwise, you're going to end up with them scattered throughout your cabinet. With digital organizing in EN, you don't have to worry about that, since you can include all those words as keywords, if you wish. So if you think you may have problems remembering this note, put it in both ways. In a similar fashion, it's not unusual for me to add alternate spellings. IE, for a note about Jim Shafer, I will include a keyword of Shaffer, so I don't have to worry about how his last name is spelled, when I later search for this note.

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I think many users use Evernote as a personal storage tool to collect and save a lot of information they are interested in.

However, after a long long time, human's memory will fade. At last what remains in our brain is nothing more than some vague clues or fragmented phrases\words.

There is no possibility that I can still remember the exact way that I arranged those sentences.

In my situation, although what I wrote in my note is "ELEC207 Question", but after maybe one month, all I remember finally is that I did have a note related to course code 207, there is no way I can remember if I put it as "ELEC207" or with a space as "ELEC 207"..... Actually I tried again, ELEC207 won't be searched, but with a space, ELEC 207 can.

Evernote's search function should serve as bridge connecting with human's unreliable and long-term memory fragments with our previously collected information. It shouldn't depend on the exact way of how we arrange the text.

Please read or re-read the post I linked to in post #5 by Dave Engberg, CTO of Evernote. This doesn't scale well when you're dealing with gigabytes of data. My main database is over 37 gigs. Additionally, when organizing, you do have to set some ground rules. IE, when organizing paper, you need to know if your cell phone bill is under C for cell, M for mobile, P for phone, T for telephone or V for Verizon. Otherwise, you're going to end up with them scattered throughout your cabinet. With digital organizing in EN, you don't have to worry about that, since you can include all those words as keywords, if you wish. So if you think you may have problems remembering this note, put it in both ways. In a similar fashion, it's not unusual for me to add alternate spellings. IE, for a note about Jim Shafer, I will include a keyword of Shaffer, so I don't have to worry about how his last name is spelled, when I later search for this note.

 

 

Thanks for your reply.

I've read the post you linked, and I can understand the problem of scaling up.

I can also understand your method as putting the texts in several ways.

HOWEVER, at last, It cannot be an truly elegant way of doing it...

 

I do suggest you try Listary as I mentioned in #12. I believe this software more or less shows that there exists the possibility of scaling up that kind of searching functionality.

I also have my main database over 40GB.

But what's really amazing is this software can find a sing file not only from this 40GB, but from my whole local disk, perhaps a few hundred GBs, within around 1 second.

 

Listary uses NTFS index or something like that for searching, I'm not sure if this technique can be applied to Evernote.

 

But it does shows the ability of searching arbitrary keywords from massive files. I recommend you have a try.

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Am I correct in understanding that Listary indexes filenames only (including paths), and not file content? I don't think that that's quite the same thing as what Evernote is trying to do.

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Am I correct in understanding that Listary indexes filenames only (including paths), and not file content? I don't think that that's quite the same thing as what Evernote is trying to do.

 

That's what it appears to be to me as well (emphasis mine):

 

"All you have to do is just type the file name that you’re looking for"

 

As Jeff said, this is not what Evernote is about.  Evernote searches the body of the note as well as images & other attachment types (depending upon file type & account type (free vs premium)).

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  • Level 5

If it's plugging into the Windows file system indexing it could certainly be doing search on internal content, rather than just file names (though I wouldn't say that the windows search index stands out for any given reason).  However I looked really hard also for any references to that in free and pro product, and see no confirmation that it is.  So if they are they're selling themselves short in the marketing.

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