Combining an "any" search with an "and" search

[T Ward 1]

I am trying to search for all notes that have a reminder set or an "Action" tag but I want to exclude all reminders with a  date set for more than 30 days in in the future. 

 

I have two separate searches that accomplish parts of this but am having trouble combining them. 

 

 "reminderOrder:*  -ReminderTime:day+30" works to bring up all the notes with reminders that are not more than 30 days out. 

 

"any: reminderOrder:*  tag:!Action" works to bring up all reminders and actions. 

 

Any suggestion on how to  combine the two searches to exclude only those reminders with a due date not more than 30 days out?

 

Thanks

 

 

 

 

[CalS 5,280]

There isn't a boolean AND operator in EN which makes this type of search difficult.  Sometimes you can get creative and accomplish this, either with the ANY operator or some structural change. 

 

Adding a reminder, with or without date, to your notes with the !Action tag could help some since reminderorder:* -remindertime:day+30 would then include the !Action tagged notes.  Not as pretty as one might like I'm sure.  Also, you might want to add a -reminderdone:day+30 to eliminate completed reminders from the search, assuming you keep those notes.  FWIW.

[T Ward 1]

Thanks csihilling. That's what I was butting up against. Just hoping someone has a brilliant work around.

 

T

[CalS 5,280]

You are welcome.  Methinks the brilliant workaround would be creation of ANDOR functionality for searches.  But based upon how long this has been a request, not holding my breath. 

 

EDIT:  Fixed brain spasm.

[JMichaelTX 4,117]

You are welcome.  Methinks the brilliant workaround would be creation of AND functionality for searches.  But based upon how long this has been a request, not holding my breath. 

 

"AND" is not the issue.  We have that now -- it is implied in all searches that do not start with "any:" 

(I know you know this, this is just for clarification for other readers)

 

It is the combination of "AND" and "OR", aka full boolean search, that is needed.

 

This has been requested since at least 2011:

See More complex search with AND/OR-equivalent operators

 

What is so confusing and frustrating is that full boolean search is built-in to SQL databases, like the one's that Evernote uses.

So the change is a relatively minor one of parsing the user's input to build the SQL query.

[Frank.dg 1,385]

Guess what, @JMichael?...

 

WorkFlowy has boolean search 

 

The operator, "OR" has to be capitalized.

[JMichaelTX 4,117]

Frank, you need to change your title to "Workflowy Evangelist"  

[JMichaelTX 4,117]

 

Just a quick question about boolean... and this might seem a little ignorant... but what is the difference between an "OR" search operator and the Evernote "any:" operator? What, technically makes up a boolean search string?

 

The "any:" operator is like putting an "OR" between each term in the Search box.

 

Boolean means that the expression must evaluate to TRUE to make a match.

 

Full Boolean, would allow you to do stuff like this:

((tag:A AND tag: OR tag:C) AND (NOT tag:D)

So this would return Notes that have tags:

BOTH A & B  tags must be assigned

OR C  (Tags A & B not required, but could be present)

but must not have Tag D

 

So it would return Notes with tags

• A,B,C and any other tags except D
• C only
• A,B only
• C with any other tags except D
• A,B with any other tags except D

It EXCLUDES all Notes that have Tag D.

 

Make sense?

[Frank.dg 1,385]

That more than makes sense. Very clear explanation. Thanks @JMichael!

[K-nut 2]

Not what you are asking for @T Ward and you proberly have reason for not doing it, but to state it:

Why don´t you have the ACTIONS seperated in a seperate notebook than the rest?

I use TSW and Evernote and find that useful... but then that is another discussion.