(Archived) Search Function - compound word not searchable by sufix base

[Sparky 0]

So hopefully this is not an inherent limitation or miss in product development and I’m simply missing something myself (like a wildcard indicator in syntax or setting etc).  What I mean by the subject here, is when searching on any device, Evernote will not return a result if that search word is not at the beginning of the compound word item.

 

As an example:

 

Let’s say you have a note has an item you are searching for as a compound word, such as a website might have or a true compound word.  Let say its "ThisWordIsACompoundFlagnard" within the note which is the subject I want to find.  Now I know "Flagnard" is the most unique part of that and is the subject I want, and maybe I forgot what might come before it, so naturally I search for "Flagnard".  This returns zero results.  The search for the suffix side of any word (any grouping of letters that does not start the word) will return absolutely nothing.  It is not until I search the beginning of that compound phrase/prefix that the result returns.

 

I’ve tried all obvious forms of wildcards (*, %, ?, etc) to no avail and cannot find any documentation about the subject of standard broad searches (only found details about advanced restriction syntax methods).

 

Anyone know about this as an inevitable factual limitation, or way to introduce wide inner word searching?  I’ve submitted a support request but figured I would post to the forum as well.

[GrumpyMonkey 4,319]

So hopefully this is not an inherent limitation or miss in product development and I’m simply missing something myself (like a wildcard indicator in syntax or setting etc).  What I mean by the subject here, is when searching on any device, Evernote will not return a result if that search word is not at the beginning of the compound word item.

 

As an example:

 

Let’s say you have a note has an item you are searching for as a compound word, such as a website might have or a true compound word.  Let say its "ThisWordIsACompoundFlagnard" within the note which is the subject I want to find.  Now I know "Flagnard" is the most unique part of that and is the subject I want, and maybe I forgot what might come before it, so naturally I search for "Flagnard".  This returns zero results.  The search for the suffix side of any word (any grouping of letters that does not start the word) will return absolutely nothing.  It is not until I search the beginning of that compound phrase/prefix that the result returns.

 

I’ve tried all obvious forms of wildcards (*, %, ?, etc) to no avail and cannot find any documentation about the subject of standard broad searches (only found details about advanced restriction syntax methods).

 

Anyone know about this as an inevitable factual limitation, or way to introduce wide inner word searching?  I’ve submitted a support request but figured I would post to the forum as well.

 

Hi. Welcome to the forums. Evernote can only search from the beginning of words. If you are on a Mac, you can use Spotlight, which will be able to find capitalized words within words. One exception would be Asian character searches, which will work within words (because there are generally no spaces in the languages) in both Evernote and Spotlight. 

 

Here is more detail about Evernote searches.

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

 

Here is even more detail.

http://dev.evernote.com/documentation/cloud/chapters/search_grammar.php

[Sparky 0]

Thank you for the swift reply GM, that second article is great.  Thanks for sharing that!

 

Aware of any potential to add an open ended "contains" logic or wildcard char?  Still shocked and a little heartbroken the Search function is as awesome as it is with EBNF even, yet doesn’t have any "contains" or WC logic.

[GrumpyMonkey 4,319]

Thank you for the swift reply GM, that second article is great.  Thanks for sharing that!

 

Aware of any potential to add an open ended "contains" logic or wildcard char?  Still shocked and a little heartbroken the Search function is as awesome as it is with EBNF even, yet doesn’t have any "contains" or WC logic.

 

Glad I could help. Evernote doesn't share it's future plans. If you are on a Mac, there are a lot of possibilities. Personally, I like to use BBEdit. It has an amazing range of advanced search functions including partial word searches. Just point it at your Evernote folder, and let it go! Here are directions on how to find the folder.

 

http://www.christopher-mayo.com/?p=135

[Servemark 0]

This is a pretty severe limitation, and hard to believe that such a "polished" app that puts so much effort and resources into peripheral add-ons, reminders, and email notices has such a miserable search. Searching on "contains" is usually the default and standard. Why would anyone presume "begins with" to be the preferred and only desired operator?
 

When we ask if there are plans to fix this, it would be nice to give a clear answer so we can make an informed decision as to stick around for a bit or look elsewhere for a tool that works properly (without having to hack in with BBEdit).

So I'll ask too: are there plans to FIX the search?

[BurgersNFries 2,407]

This is a pretty severe limitation, and hard to believe that such a "polished" app that puts so much effort and resources into peripheral add-ons, reminders, and email notices has such a miserable search. Searching on "contains" is usually the default and standard. Why would anyone presume "begins with" to be the preferred and only desired operator?

 

When we ask if there are plans to fix this, it would be nice to give a clear answer so we can make an informed decision as to stick around for a bit or look elsewhere for a tool that works properly (without having to hack in with BBEdit).

So I'll ask too: are there plans to FIX the search?

 

1. I have a lot of notes & do not find this a "severe limitation".  EN has a great search engine & a lot of search parameters you can use to find the note(s) you're looking for.
2. Evernote does not publish their roadmap or ETAs.
3. The search is not broken, it was done this way intentionally.
4. http://discussion.evernote.com/topic/16794-date-search-with-wildcard/?p=83358#entry83358

[Servemark 0]

 

This is a pretty severe limitation, and hard to believe that such a "polished" app that puts so much effort and resources into peripheral add-ons, reminders, and email notices has such a miserable search. Searching on "contains" is usually the default and standard. Why would anyone presume "begins with" to be the preferred and only desired operator?

 

When we ask if there are plans to fix this, it would be nice to give a clear answer so we can make an informed decision as to stick around for a bit or look elsewhere for a tool that works properly (without having to hack in with BBEdit).

So I'll ask too: are there plans to FIX the search?

 

1. I have a lot of notes & do not find this a "severe limitation".  EN has a great search engine & a lot of search parameters you can use to find the note(s) you're looking for.
2. Evernote does not publish their roadmap or ETAs.
3. The search is not broken, it was done this way intentionally.
4. http://discussion.evernote.com/topic/16794-date-search-with-wildcard/?p=83358#entry83358

 

 

1. You may not be a power user, and it fits your simple needs. The app & syncing is great. The search SUCKS. See #3.

2. Well that's too bad, but users can leave if they want a solution without being left in the dark.

3. "It's not broken... it's meant to work this way..." Yeah. If I'm hunting for note I took referring to "CustomWordpress.org" and can only remember that wordpress was part of the domain, this "great" search won't find it. In my book, and many others who aren't **Evangelists**, that is broken. Intentional or not.

4. Mr. Dave & company should consider an intelligent solution to this problem that CONSIDER THE USERS' NEEDS in balance with their performance/scalability considerations. If they "designed it this way" and it's not doing what people expect, maybe they designed it **wrong**.

Thanks to those of you who are making those of us who are stating our concerns with this issue and LIMITATION seem foolish. Thanks for giving us the sense there won't be a fix on the horizon soon and to start looking elsewhere. That's great "evangelism", like this "great" search.

 

[BurgersNFries 2,407]

1. You may not be a power user, and it fits your simple needs. The app & syncing is great. The search SUCKS. See #3.

2. Well that's too bad, but users can leave if they want a solution without being left in the dark.

3. "It's not broken... it's meant to work this way..." Yeah. If I'm hunting for note I took referring to "CustomWordpress.org" and can only remember that wordpress was part of the domain, this "great" search won't find it. In my book, and many others who aren't **Evangelists**, that is broken. Intentional or not.

4. Mr. Dave & company should consider an intelligent solution to this problem that CONSIDER THE USERS' NEEDS in balance with their performance/scalability considerations. If they "designed it this way" and it's not doing what people expect, maybe they designed it **wrong**.

Thanks to those of you who are making those of us who are stating our concerns with this issue and LIMITATION seem foolish. Thanks for giving us the sense there won't be a fix on the horizon soon and to start looking elsewhere. That's great "evangelism", like this "great" search.

• Yah, I think I'd be considered a power user. 
• Yes they can.  That's why there's chocolate & vanilla.
• 4. & comment - Again, just because the app doesn't work the way you want it to doesn't mean it's broken or unintelligent.  Apparently EN works well enough that it has 60+ million users.  And yes, they have considered "THE USERS' NEEDS".  You mention "scalability"  Adding in the searches you want will NOT scale well when you have tens of thousands of notes & a 40 gig database.

Thanks to those of you who are making those of us who are stating our concerns with this issue and LIMITATION seem foolish. Thanks for giving us the sense there won't be a fix on the horizon soon and to start looking elsewhere. That's great "evangelism", like this "great" search.

 

Funny b/c I would think you would appreciate the straight story.  No, EN does not find arbitrary occurrences.  So if you need that, you should find an app that does what you need.  If I lied & told you, "YES, this is being worked on as we speak & will be rolled out soon." That may make you feel better today & tomorrow.  But what about a month or two from now?  Or a year from now?  That's not only dishonest but serves no purpose.  Maybe you should appreciate the fact that you now know you need to find an app that better suits your purpose.

[Servemark 0]

My point is to bring light the ways this "search" doesn't behave as most users would expect. And for the record, I've been a User Experience Designer at a company that does SEARCH on Electronic Health Records systems. If we were as lax about quality control, all your health records would will be chaotic mess.

 

But back to the problem in Evernote, which is a far simpler design and engineering scope.

 

When one searches on "wordpress" an instance of "mywordpress.org" will be MISSED completely, and a search query on "wordpress.org" will ONLY return EVERY SINGLE instance of ".org" and "org", including the word "organic"?????

 

Can someone from EVERNOTE please reply? 

BurgersNFries, with all due respect, if you are not a QA professional or someone officially from Evernote, you are only exacerbating the issue now. Please leave it alone and let someone who can understand the problem address it.

[BurgersNFries 2,407]

My point is to bring light the ways this "search" doesn't behave as most users would expect. And for the record, I've been a User Experience Designer at a company that does SEARCH on Electronic Health Records systems. If we were as lax about quality control, all your health records would will be chaotic mess.

 

But back to the problem in Evernote, which is a far simpler design and engineering scope.

 

When one searches on "wordpress" an instance of "mywordpress.org" will be MISSED completely, and a search query on "wordpress.org" will ONLY return EVERY SINGLE instance of ".org" and "org", including the word "organic"?????

 

Can someone from EVERNOTE please reply? 

BurgersNFries, with all due respect, if you are not a QA professional or someone officially from Evernote, you are only exacerbating the issue now. Please leave it alone and let someone who can understand the problem address it.

 

 

Your job has nothing to do with the issue at hand. 

 

This is a user's board.  Evernote staff read all the posts but do not reply to all or even all threads.  If you want to dialog directly with EN staff, you will need to submit a support ticket.  But I doubt you'll get any more info than what I've already provided to you.

 

I definitely understand *your* problem.  However, you don't seem to understand what I've very clearly said multiple times.  Which could well explain the horror stories of medical records in a "chaotic mess". 

 

Good luck with finding an app that better suits your needs.

[designjb 0]

Sorry, BurgersNFries, I have to jump in here and agree with Servemark. I would consider this to be a "limitation" of the search function — whether it was intentionally left out or not by the dev.

 

It certainly would be a benefit to EN and to all of its users to implement the ability to search within phrases, and to even search for full phrases. GrumpyMonkey has found a great workaround above, but it is not very fast and is certainly not as efficient as having the capability built into EN itself.

 

I simply find it hard to believe that as a Premium subscriber I need to use (and pay for) an unrelated piece of third party software to search WITHIN my software of choice. 

 

 

No way to "crack that egg" and not call it a limitation...

[GrumpyMonkey 4,319]

Sorry, BurgersNFries, I have to jump in here and agree with Servemark. I would consider this to be a "limitation" of the search function — whether it was intentionally left out or not by the dev.

 

It certainly would be a benefit to EN and to all of its users to implement the ability to search within phrases, and to even search for full phrases. GrumpyMonkey has found a great workaround above, but it is not very fast and is certainly not as efficient as having the capability built into EN itself.

 

I simply find it hard to believe that as a Premium subscriber I need to use (and pay for) an unrelated piece of third party software to search WITHIN my software of choice. 

 

 

No way to "crack that egg" and not call it a limitation...

I'm not sure that we should be getting hung up on the word. As soon as you write a single line of code, you are imposing limits on software. There is no software in the world that exists without limits.

Every search function / application I have ever used has had slightly different capabilities. For example, GREP with BBEdit is incredibly powerful, and in my opinion does a whole lot more than Evernote. Yet, as far as I know, it lacks the ability to search the titles (of files, in this case). As someone who relies a lot on titles for organization, this is a huge problem. However, they just didn't design it into the app and that is that. It isn't that there is something wrong with it. It's just how it was made.

Evernote is the same way, and the more you try to squeeze out of it, the more you'll run into limits (I've got a page about these here http://www.christopher-mayo.com/?p=169). It's not a bad thing, and there isn't any need (in my mind) to "fix" these limits. Rather, there is a need to become aware of them so that you can use workarounds or design your usage of the app accordingly.

Anyhow, in this case, it would be nice if the search feature existed, and I'm sure the developers are aware of the interest in it. Maybe they'll reply here with more of their rationale, but my guess is that they have thought a lot about this and they have good reasons for what they are doing. That doesn't mean we shouldn't prod them to change! However, just because they decide to do it one way doesn't mean they are "wrong" or that the search doesn't work properly. It's a difference of opinion. That's all.

[designjb 0]

Grumpy, I certainly don't disagree with you. Just the focus of the chosen/implemented Search routines  leaves me scratching my head, that's all...

 

For instance, EN won't let me search for a basic phrase (two back-to-back words separated by a normal space surrounded by quotes) like, "important thing would be" as opposed to searching for "important", "thing", "would", "be". When I first realized this, I thought there was a bug in the program... Perhaps I am missing something, but I have been unable to find how to do this in EN.

 

BBEdit will pick up on it, yes, but that is a basic search function that most users, imho, will expect.

[BurgersNFries 2,407]

Grumpy, I certainly don't disagree with you. Just the focus of the chosen/implemented Search routines  leaves me scratching my head, that's all...

 

For instance, EN won't let me search for a basic phrase (two back-to-back words separated by a normal space surrounded by quotes) like, "important thing would be" as opposed to searching for "important", "thing", "would", "be". When I first realized this, I thought there was a bug in the program... Perhaps I am missing something, but I have been unable to find how to do this in EN.

 

BBEdit will pick up on it, yes, but that is a basic search function that most users, imho, will expect.

Sure it does. Searching on "read this" finds only those notes where the word 'read' is followed by a single space & then the word 'this' as opposed to all notes containing both words but not in that format.

[designjb 0]

Yes, you are correct, but it also finds every instance of every word in the entire phrase. Which means:  the more common the words in the phrase, the more 'hits' are generated... This then returns many pages of items to scroll through manually. (And all this is just to find a simple phrase.). If EN could truly search for an entire phrase "as a phrase," it would generate less hits as it should ignore individual words which are excluded by the use of phrase quotes.

 

"important thing would be" versus "important", "thing", "would", "be"

 

 

As a general rule, software/interface design should cater to the end user's needs, not the other way around which is:  change the ways you work to fit my software's rules.

 

 

I suppose what I am expecting is the choice to find a phrase first and foremost. I then can find each word in the phrase independently — but only if I want to do so...

 

 

I'm a heavy EN user and love it, even recommend it to others — but always with the caveat that its Search needs improvement.

 

For me, it's all about ease of use in the end. 

[GrumpyMonkey 4,319]

Yes, you are correct, but it also finds every instance of every word in the entire phrase. Which means:  the more common the words in the phrase, the more 'hits' are generated... This then returns many pages of items to scroll through manually. (And all this is just to find a simple phrase.). If EN could truly search for an entire phrase "as a phrase," it would generate less hits as it should ignore individual words which are excluded by the use of phrase quotes.

 

"important thing would be" versus "important", "thing", "would", "be"

 

 

As a general rule, software/interface design should cater to the end user's needs, not the other way around which is:  change the ways you work to fit my software's rules.

 

 

I suppose what I am expecting is the choice to find a phrase first and foremost. I then can find each word in the phrase independently — but only if I want to do so...

 

 

I'm a heavy EN user and love it, even recommend it to others — but always with the caveat that its Search needs improvement.

 

For me, it's all about ease of use in the end. 

I am not seeing this behavior on the Mac. There have been instances (reported by me) of problems with quotation marks and Asian character searches, but I do not remember there being cases of problems with the quotation marks and English. A search for "important thing" in my account turned up 38 notes, and in all cases it was only the entire phrase, and not the individual components ("important" or "thing"). Which client are you using?

[designjb 0]

Mac OSX 10.6.8

Evernote 5.2.1 (401587)

 

I don't want you to misunderstand:  EN does accept the quotes, but it still returns all of the individual words in the search results.

 

From my perspective, in a phrase search, there is no need to return the additional word results.

 

Hope that helps. 

[BurgersNFries 2,407]

Yes, you are correct, but it also finds every instance of every word in the entire phrase.

Mac OSX 10.6.8

Evernote 5.2.1 (401587)

I don't want you to misunderstand: EN does accept the quotes, but it still returns all of the individual words in the search results.

Not on the Windows client.

[designjb 0]

Ah ha! And there we have it. Perhaps that Windows implementation is forthcoming in a fix for the Mac.... would certainly be nice.

 

Thanks much for your help — and for your professionalism!  

[GrumpyMonkey 4,319]

Ah ha! And there we have it. Perhaps that Windows implementation is forthcoming in a fix for the Mac.... would certainly be nice.

 

Thanks much for your help — and for your professionalism!  

I am not seeing this issue (returning individual words in a search from a phrase enclosed in quotes) on the Mac. I am running Version 5.3.0 Beta 3 (401736). You may want to upgrade and see what happens.

[danielg_dk 2]

I agree that this search function behaviour is a limitation.

And as a user, I would like it to be modified/corrected.

 

As URL is a good example, I can give another one: danish language. In that language very often words are stitched together. For example: billån (bil + lån), which means loan for a car.