Search an entry with multiple keywords

mee

I would like to have the ability to search for an entry using multiple keywords. Right now, we can only search with 1 keyword or keywords following the same structure in an entry. It would be great to be able to search for an entry that contain "keyword 1 + keyword 2" or "keyword 1 or keyword 2". I decided to go digital instead of physical so that I could easily find previous entries, but the searching feature is limited by this.

Diarium version: 2.9.12
Operating system: Android

timo

Can you give a short example / use case in which one might search for two keywords but is actually interested in either one?
Generally, search engines search for results that contain all query keywords

mee

It could be, for example, if you want to see all the entries that contain breakfast or diner or supper. It would be useful to see them all rather that searching each of them individually.

Just allowing multiple keywords searching would already be a great addition though.

I was using another diary app for years, but been recently hunting for one that has this feature. Since, I am starting to have a lot of entries, it's a bit difficult to quickly search for past ones. I stumbled on yours that I do like a lot in many aspects, but is still missing this feature.

timo

Ok will consider this, but (as with all feature requests) can't make any promises.

mee

Of course, I understand that. Thank you for taking the time to read and reply 🙂

Mits

It would be really neat to be able to search for multiple keywords. Search for something like Subject%keyword would work ... searching for items that have Subject AND keyword.

Harry

I wholeheartedly agree! The ability to search all entries for multiple keywords that aren't side-by-side in the text is my #1 request.

Harry

Ironically, the search feature for this forum is set up exactly the way we'd love to see it in the app 🙂

AvinashR

This forum is not designed by @timo. Third party one

timo

Thanks everyone for participating in the discussion. After some consideration I decided that I will change the search in the following way:

if you only search for one word (no spaces), nothing changes
if you search for multiple words (separated by spaces), the app searches the database for each search term separately and then only displays the results that contains all search terms
if you want to search for a particular term, e.g. "house party" but don't want results that don't contain the exact term (e.g. "The party took places at his house", you can specify the search term in quotation marks: "house party"
no "result ranking" is done based on number of occurrences or other factors, the results are listed by date

AvinashR

What multiple combinations
For ex: "Find the" mobile

timo

AvinashR Sorry, I didn't understand that

AvinashR

I will a give a scenario.

I have created 3 entries
First: A B
Second: B
Third: C

Now when I search for A B C i don’t get any result.
Expected to show 3 entries. More like or condition

Also when I search for “A B” C it should show 2 entries.

timo

timo if you search for multiple words (separated by spaces), the app searches the database for each search term separately and then only displays the results that contains all search terms

The search only shows results that contain all search terms. None of your 3 example entries contain "A", "B" & "C".

In previous version, when you search for "A B C", then only entries were shown that contain exactly the term "A B C", while now also entries are shown that contain text like "C xy B xy A"

Harry

@timo I am so excited! Ever since I got your app, this was the one feature I most wanted. Thank you so, so much!!

I do want to say that searching for a term in quotation marks doesn't seem to work at all for me on my 3.0.41 iPhone app. For instance, I have the phrase "more game" in an entry, but when I search for those words in quotation marks ("more game"), it shows "no results." This does work correctly for me on the Mac app.

I do wish we could sort results by frequency OR date right from the search bar, but hopefully that will come in a future update.

I also wish we could see the highlighted search phrase in every search result, not just the results where it is in the opening text. It would be awesome if Diarium could focus the result text around where the result is.

It would further be helpful if upon opening a search result entry, the search text remained highlighted in the full entry so you could quickly find it in a long entry.

Thank you again so much for adding this!

timo

Harry do want to say that searching for a term in quotation marks doesn't seem to work at all for me on my 3.0.41 iPhone app. For instance, I have the phrase "more game" in an entry, but when I search for those words in quotation marks ("more game"),

I think this is because the iPhone keyboard doesn't have the " character, but instead the „ and “ characters. I will see if I can consider them as apostrophes as well

Harry I also wish we could see the highlighted search phrase in every search result, not just the results where it is in the opening text. It would be awesome if Diarium could focus the result text around where the result is.

Unfortunately that is very hard to implement. You can however in the settings select to show the full entries in the timeline (this has not been implemented yet for macOS - but there's a feature request for it). There's also a feature requests here in the forum that suggests having an expand button for each timeline element to expand/collapse the full text per entry

Harry It would further be helpful if upon opening a search result entry, the search text remained highlighted in the full entry so you could quickly find it in a long entry.

There's another feature request for that here in the forums

Harry

@timo Thank you for seeing if you can consider those other characters! Now in 3.0.42, searching "more game on iOS works, but not if I add the closing parentheses, like "more game". Still, it now does what is needed (and with one fewer character!) but it would be nice if it worked as expected with both parentheses.

Thanks for listening to feedback and responding. I didn't know about the option to see full entries in the timeline. That's rad! I would LOVE to see that on MacOS, too! One thing though – rather than have the entry date centered (it seems to disappear on long entries), it'd be FAR better if the date were at the top of each timeline entry and sticky on screen until the next date scrolled along to replace it.

timo

I added the support for the additional characters in 3.0.42. Please post the exact character for which it is not working.

For other suggestions, please open a separate thread (if there isn't an existing one yet)