Evernote Search Complaint

[Awfki 0]

Evernote, like way too many other apps, trys too hard to help.

 

When I search for "DN:" I do NOT expect that to match "DNS" or "dn=" or "dnoonan". The search needs to match the string I typed and NOTHING else. Holy ***** things like this make me nuts.  Just do what I ask and stop helping in unexpected and unwanted ways.

 

 

 

[gazumped 11,713]

Hi.  Any search syntax is usually quite precise once you know what it expects in the way of enquiries,  and can deliver in the way of results.  "DN" is woefully short for a valid search string - many search engines don't 'do' less than 3 characters - which might explain your odd results.  If you have a search which doesn't work correctly however,  why not apply a specific tag?  Tag:DN would and could only return those items tagged with that character string.

[Awfki 0]

"DN" is woefully short for a valid search string - many search engines don't 'do' less than 3 characters - which might explain your odd results.  If you have a search which doesn't work correctly however,  why not apply a specific tag?  Tag:DN would and could only return those items tagged with that character string.

 

I didn't search for "DN" I searched for "DN:" and Evernote decided I didn't really want to include the colon in my search.

 

That's the bit I'm irritated about.  Step 1 of the search process should be "look for exactly what was typed", if that doesn't find anything then I'm okay with step 2 being "try variations in spelling or remove punctuation".   Evernote skips step 1, doubtless in an effort to "help" the user, but in my opinion that makes it broken. 

 

I have a number of notes where the title starts with "DN:". Some of them also have that as a tag but tagging requires an extra step and sometimes I'm in a hurry.

[gazumped 11,713]

Hmmn.  Since Evernote responds to keywords like tag: and notebook: I wonder if a trailing colon is a reserved syntax - either way,  longer keywords or tags seems to be the way to go...

[ziru 11]

Evernote, like way too many other apps, trys too hard to help.

 

When I search for "DN:" I do NOT expect that to match "DNS" or "dn=" or "dnoonan". The search needs to match the string I typed and NOTHING else. Holy ***** things like this make me nuts.  Just do what I ask and stop helping in unexpected and unwanted ways.

 

You can put quotes around DN: to stop the default prefix matching, aka search for "DN:" (with the double quotes).  It should match notes with "DN", "DN:", "dn=", but not "DNS", "dnoonnan".

 

As to the symbols like colon, Evernote fulltext search currently does not index such symbols. Most symbols are treated as word delimiters, instead of part of the word.

 

Example 1: if the note contains DN-ABC, you can find this note by DN, or ABC.

Evernote note search does not cover infix matching (which will not only slow down the search if # of notes become big, but also return many unwanted results).  That is, searching for N, BC, C will not get you the above note.

 

Example 2: if the note contains Latitude:51.23, you can find this note by latitude, or 51.23.

If we indexed symbols like ':' and treat it as part of the word, then the user will only no longer be able find this note by 51.23, because we do not support infix matching.

 

With the above being said, there are some uses of symbols we want to reevaluate sometime.  For example, the pound character in "C#" or the leading at symbol in "@Awfki".  Such uses should better be considered as part of the word, rather than a word delimiter.

[jbenson2 2,147]

<snip>

You can put quotes around DN: to stop the default prefix matching, aka search for "DN:" (with the double quotes). 

 

<snip>

Example 1: if the note contains DN-ABC, you can find this note by 'DN', or 'ABC'.

 

Thanks for the response, but...

Why did you switch from double quotes to single quotes?

It is my experience that single quotes do not work correctly in Evernote Windows.

 

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - 

Search term using double quotes:

intitle:"09 14"

Results

32 correct results

Examples:

2015 09 14 USA NJ - Verizon - Order Confirmation - Replacement Phone

2015 09 14 USA ME Palmyra - Burger King $20.38 cash

2011 09 14 USA MA Winchester - Fred called re: his trip

 

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - 

Search term using single quotes:

intitle:'09 14'

Results

338 incorrect results - only finds titles that contain 09

Examples:

2015 09 05 USA MA Tewksbury - Cracker Barrel - $52.35

2014 09 26 USA ME - Sebasticook Valley - In the Middle of Everything - Region1

2013 01 09 USA MN Rogers - Rogers 18 - The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey

 

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - 

Here is why I do not use single quotes.  

Even though I never use a dash in my date codes, this search version works:

 

Search term using single quotes AND a dash:

intitle:'09-14'

Results:

32 correct results

Examples:

2015 09 14 USA NJ - Verizon LG G3 screen goes black - phone call

1993 09 14 USA CA San Diego C&K San Diego Sales Meeting

 

 

[Awfki 0]

What I used this for, or would if Evernote would search properly, is a bunch of notes that I've created and put DN: at the beginning of the title so they'd be easy to find later.  But, as noted, searching for DN: doesn't work properly.  

 

You mentioned that Evernote doesn't index punctuation.  That's broken. If it's a character I can type it should be searchable. 

 

But, okay, that's broken and we have to work around it but then I search for DN and Evernote finds DNS.  Again, broken. Match what I type as a whole word and don't match anything else unless I ask you too. 

 

My point is something that I see broken in a lot of applications.  The app is written to help the most ignorant user so when I type DN in the search box it matches every possible instance of DN. That's fine, I have no objection to that AS LONG AS THERE'S AN EASILY FOUND OPTION TO DISABLE THAT "FEATURE".  I am really, really tired of apps that handicap more advanced users by not letting them do a proper search.

 

I have about 2700 notes and about 40 that start with DN:.  It should be easy to find those notes with "DN:" (quote to get an exact match) or ^DN (regex for start of line) or title:DN (I only want to search the titles of my notes) but Evernote doesn't give me any of those options. Instead it makes me wade through notes that contain "DNS" and "didn't" and "DNA" and "midnight". 

 

Evernote is currently the best note taking app I know of so they're getting my money. But Evernote is not even close to as good as they could be and the instant someone comes along with better search and the ability to clean up bullshit HTML I'll happily move to them. 

 

To me, it seems that Evernote is rest on their laurels waiting for competitors to catch up.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Evernote, like way too many other apps, trys too hard to help.

 

When I search for "DN:" I do NOT expect that to match "DNS" or "dn=" or "dnoonan". The search needs to match the string I typed and NOTHING else. Holy ***** things like this make me nuts.  Just do what I ask and stop helping in unexpected and unwanted ways.

 

You can put quotes around DN: to stop the default prefix matching, aka search for "DN:" (with the double quotes).  It should match notes with "DN", "DN:", "dn=", but not "DNS", "dnoonnan".

 

As to the symbols like colon, Evernote fulltext search currently does not index such symbols. Most symbols are treated as word delimiters, instead of part of the word.

 

Example 1: if the note contains DN-ABC, you can find this note by 'DN', or 'ABC'.

Evernote note search does not cover infix matching (which will not only slow down the search if # of notes become big, but also return many unwanted results).  That is, searching for 'N', 'BC', 'C' will not get you the above note.

 

Example 2: if the note contains Latitude:51.23, you can find this note by 'latitude', or '51.23'.

If we indexed symbols like ':' and treat it as part of the word, then the user will only no longer be able find this note by '51.23', because we do not support infix matching.

 

With the above being said, there are some uses of symbols we want to reevaluate sometime.  For example, the pound character in "C#" or the leading at symbol in "@Awfki".  Such uses should better be considered as part of the word, rather than a word delimiter.

 

[ziru 11]

 

<snip>

You can put quotes around DN: to stop the default prefix matching, aka search for "DN:" (with the double quotes). 

 

<snip>

Example 1: if the note contains DN-ABC, you can find this note by 'DN', or 'ABC'.

 

Thanks for the response, but...

Why did you switch from double quotes to single quotes?

It is my experience that single quotes do not work correctly in Evernote Windows.

 

 

My bad.  I mean without double quotes for the prefix matching by default, and using double quotes to stop prefix matching.

[ziru 11]

I have about 2700 notes and about 40 that start with DN:.  It should be easy to find those notes with "DN:" (quote to get an exact match) or ^DN (regex for start of line) or title:DN (I only want to search the titles of my notes) but Evernote doesn't give me any of those options. Instead it makes me wade through notes that contain "DNS" and "didn't" and "DNA" and "midnight". 

 

If you are using the latest 6.2 release, you can find those 40 notes with DN: by searching for "DN:".  It should stop the prefix matching, and should not return notes with DNS/DNA/midnight but not the exact word DN at all.

 

Unfortunately, we have a known issue with our search highlighting, and so it could still highlight DNA, midnight, DNS, etc.  We are working on fixing this misleading issue as well.

[Awfki 0]

 

I have about 2700 notes and about 40 that start with DN:.  It should be easy to find those notes with "DN:" (quote to get an exact match) or ^DN (regex for start of line) or title:DN (I only want to search the titles of my notes) but Evernote doesn't give me any of those options. Instead it makes me wade through notes that contain "DNS" and "didn't" and "DNA" and "midnight". 

 

If you are using the latest 6.2 release, you can find those 40 notes with DN: by searching for "DN:".  It should stop the prefix matching, and should not return notes with DNS/DNA/midnight but not the exact word DN at all.

 

Unfortunately, we have a known issue with our search highlighting, and so it could still highlight DNA, midnight, DNS, etc.  We are working on fixing this misleading issue as well.

 

 

Yay!  I upgraded and it works now!  Thank you.  

 

 

Now if you'll let at the HTML so I fix broken formatting...