(Archived) how to search for "this" OR "that" ?

[evermullah 8]

hi,

i've read here and some other sites which try to explain the search-function of EN, but didnt come to a conclusion.

i simply like to search for "this" OR "that" (i expect to find notes that contain the word(s) "this" or the word(s) "that" or both)

how to do that? that can't be so hard, but it seems that i'm unable to find the way how to do it atm...

cheers,

[jefito 5,589]

Use the "any:" search operator: any: this that

[evermullah 8]

Use the "any:" search operator: any: this that

hey jefito thanks, that worked.

now, i'd like to specify my prev. post a little bit

is it possible to search for:

"what" and ("this" or "that") ?

that should find all notes containing

"what" and "this"

or notes containing

"what" and "that".

is that possible?

i tried

what any:this that

and some other combinations, but they didnt work out.

[Owyn 457]

is it possible to search for:

"what" and ("this" or "that") ?

No.

At this time you can not do mixed and/or (all/any) searches, and, the Evernote search syntax does not support parentheses.

It has been requested many times, but...

[evermullah 8]

It has been requested many times, but...

hereby i add me to the list of requestors. is there a place to subscribe?

[jbenson2 2,147]

hereby i add me to the list of requestors. is there a place to subscribe?

You just did.

[jefito 5,589]

It's pretty clear that they understand that databases support more complex queries, but they haven't chosen to implement them. Why? I've never seen any definitive response, but my guess would be that it would be to make queries simpler for less powerful devices to implement. And possibly to make search queries easier for the average user to compose (but even so, some folks have difficulty with it). These are just guesses, mind...

[Owyn 457]

You could be right. Parser support for parentheses is relatively trivial, but, supporting it could result in queries which are orders of magnitude more expensive to execute.

[jmayson 10]

Bing has adopted Google's search syntax. I figure if they can get away with it then perhaps Evernote can too? :-)

I do find myself having to go look up how to structure a search query for Evernote because it's different enough from Google. Just a thought.

[davidduty 2]

I've implemented tags like they use in The Secret Weapon" videos which i think are great training tools.

I'd like to create a saved search to find ALL my action items. This way I could click the saved search and have all of the show up in one list. I could then sort by tag and group them all together. I can't seem to figure out how to create one saved search that would find ALL the following tags.

! Urgent

1-Now

2-Next

3-Soon

4-Later

5-Someday

6-Waiting

Could some please tell me how I can do this.

Thanks,

[jefito 5,589]

If you renamed your tags to have a common prefix, say, "Action-", you could create a saved search that allows you to search for all of your action items, e.g.: "tag:Action*". If you want to sort by tags, you can do it, sorta: include the number, e.g. Action-0-Urgent, Action-1-Now, Action-2-Next, etc. You might want to prefix all of them with '!', so make them sort before other tags that use alpha characters as the first letter.

[Owyn 457]

The default search operation is AND (All:). The alternative is OR (Any:). You can not have mixed and/or in a single search. There may be a problem with searching for your tags due to the special characters in the tags. Anyway the search you need is probably:

any: tag:!Urgent tag:1-Now tag:2-Next ...

Once you have the search working Save it so you can easily use it again later.

[jefito 5,589]

Yeah, the common tag prefix hack can sorta help get around that, I think, e.g. find any-action-item AND has-some-other-property.