How Does Search Work?

[Rex 13]

Hey Guys,

 

I obviously like Evernote as I'm going on 3 years with it now, but I've never full (or even partially for that matter), understood search.  Instead, I've always relied on the Spotlight to find my notes, which is so much more accurate, it's ridiculous.

 

For instance, after seeing "improved search" in the release notes, I just downloaded the new version (5.5 Beta 2).

 

For my first search I looked for a document "Air-Way EDI".  I have over 20 notes with this phrase prominent throughout the note, including 15 documents tagged with the "Air-Way EDI" tag.

 

Well, when I search via Evernote, 504 notes are returned, absolutely none containing this exact phrase in the first 50 or so.

 

Instead, what I get is page after page of irrelevant notes, such as those with the string "air" in the URL.

 

When I switch over and search the exact same phrase via spotlight the correct notes come immediately up, the most prominently being my "Air-Way EDI Table of Contents" note.

 

Unfortunately, search in Evernote remains, for all intents and purposes, useless.  Especially for those with very large note collections.  504 results are just too many to comb through, especially when no priority is given for notes with tags or titles of the exact phrase.

 

I'm just curious, what kind of algorithm are you guys using?  Are you at liberty to say?

 

Perhaps I could make use of the search if I knew the magic words to say to get my notes returned properly.  As it is, Evernote search remains little more than a curiosity.  Little more than a head-scratcher and frequent "are these guys kidding?" declaration.

 

Is there any way you can kind of, I don't know, reverse-engineer Spotlight's algorithm and implement it with Evernote?

 

Or shall it forever remain a mystery of the IT world?

[BurgersNFries 2,407]

Hey Guys,

 

I obviously like Evernote as I'm going on 3 years with it now, but I've never full (or even partially for that matter), understood search.  Instead, I've always relied on the Spotlight to find my notes, which is so much more accurate, it's ridiculous.

 

For instance, after seeing "improved search" in the release notes, I just downloaded the new version (5.5 Beta 2).

 

For my first search I looked for a document "Air-Way EDI".  I have over 20 notes with this phrase prominent throughout the note, including 15 documents tagged with the "Air-Way EDI" tag.

 

Well, when I search via Evernote, 504 notes are returned, absolutely none containing this exact phrase in the first 50 or so.

 

Instead, what I get is page after page of irrelevant notes, such as those with the string "air" in the URL.

 

When I switch over and search the exact same phrase via spotlight the correct notes come immediately up, the most prominently being my "Air-Way EDI Table of Contents" note.

 

Unfortunately, search in Evernote remains, for all intents and purposes, useless.  Especially for those with very large note collections.  504 results are just too many to comb through, especially when no priority is given for notes with tags or titles of the exact phrase.

 

I'm just curious, what kind of algorithm are you guys using?  Are you at liberty to say?

 

Perhaps I could make use of the search if I knew the magic words to say to get my notes returned properly.  As it is, Evernote search remains little more than a curiosity.  Little more than a head-scratcher and frequent "are these guys kidding?" declaration.

 

Is there any way you can kind of, I don't know, reverse-engineer Spotlight's algorithm and implement it with Evernote?

 

Or shall it forever remain a mystery of the IT world?

http://discussion.evernote.com/topic/36345-hyphenated-searches-are-br

[Rex 13]

Thank you.

 

I tried re-running my searches with: air way edi

 

and: air edi

 

Unfortunately, the results are not significantly different.

 

I'm going to guess that it's still a work in progress.

 

Thanks again, though.

[GrumpyMonkey 4,319]

Thank you.

 

I tried re-running my searches with: air way edi

 

and: air edi

 

Unfortunately, the results are not significantly different.

 

I'm going to guess that it's still a work in progress.

 

Thanks again, though.

 

Hi. I'd recommend checking out the advanced search features.

http://evernote.com/contact/support/kb/#!/article/23245321

 

It's a work in progress, I suppose, but the advanced search grammar has been around for at least five years now with only a few minor additions -- the basic framework remains the same, which makes it one of the most powerful search in any multi-platform app (BBEdit and all kinds of other apps stand out for having more powerful searches, in my mind, but that gets us into an entirely different discussion -- it should be noted that BBEdit can also search through Evernote, so that is a mark in favor of Evernote's openness).

 

I have tens of thousands of notes, no tags, and only one notebook for 99% of my stuff. I can usually find what I want with very little effort. I do like Spotlight a lot and use it often (usually with the Houdah Spot app), but Evernote is pretty powerful. In your case, it sounds like using quotation marks and intitle:

[jefito 5,589]

In the Windows client, if you want to find hyphenated text, then you'll need to enclose your search string in double quotes. You should give that a try on your Mac.

[BurgersNFries 2,407]

Thank you.

 

I tried re-running my searches with: air way edi

 

and: air edi

 

Unfortunately, the results are not significantly different.

 

I'm going to guess that it's still a work in progress.

 

Thanks again, though.

 

I wouldn't expect them to be since searching for air-way is probably not different from air way.  And IME, enclosing a hyphenated word in quotes is iffy at best & certainly not reliable.  But as GM said, the advanced search grammar combined with other techniques (stacks, notebooks, tags, keywords, descriptivie titles, etc) are pretty powerful.