So glad that you're looking into this, I love Joplin but search is probably the only thing I dislike.
When looking for a particular note, what is your search process step by step? Can you describe where you click and how you go about it?
Most often I search for a passage in a note, so I press ctrl-p to do a global search, hope I can make out which note it might be, ctrl-f and search for the part I'm looking for.
Can you describe your experience when searching for a note?
Doing both is pretty cumbersome, I'd love if global search would show more of the context and also show me each time a word is in a note as a single entry so I could directly go to it so I don't have to search in the note again.
Do you have any remarks about the search feature?
I never use the search bar above the notes I just remembered that this exists but it also makes searching a two-step-process (first search for the note, then for the part in the note).
Looking forward to better search a lot, searching is so important and it's a pain, atm.
I agree. VS-Code Style Search Plugin looks extremely promising. I hope that the author will soon continue to develop it further. @acemarke - just go on
With Joplin on Android, I can only search within a single note if I edit the note. That's cumbersome, and ideally we'd be able to search while in read mode. I'm on Android 10 (latest my phone supports), Joplin version 2.12.3.
It's indeed great that there's an attention to this function.
When looking for a particular note, what is your search process step by step? Can you describe where you click and how you go about it?
Honestly, after some years of using Joplin I've just discovered CMD+P (global search) from this thread Of course, this says something about me, but imho it also says something about how easy it is to find it...
Considering that, when previously I was looking for a note, first I conducted a visual search of the notebook where I think the note might be, and then looked inside it.
There's a search bar right on top of the note list, which confusingly searches across all the notes (and not only within the current notebook), but doesn't show from which notebook the matching note is, nor does it show any context unless you click inside.
Previously I was thinking that this is the only search that Joplin has, and almost completely given up on it based on how it works.
Can you describe your experience when searching for a note?
Torturous. With global search it's a bit better, but it still feels counter-intuitive: you have to know that it exists, and you still don't get a lot of context in the results (and if you click inside the rest of your results are gone and so you have to start over). Then you have to use modifiers to constrain your search, but you still cannot find a matching notebook title first and then search within it (or perform a similar workflow).
Do you have any remarks about the search feature?
In a perfect world, what I'd like to see is:
the obvious search bar where you could just click and start typing (or use a hotkey instead to get the focus there, like CMD+L that we've used to in browsers)
search results that show you the notebook (and path to it when you have hierarchy) and then the note, and then enough of the context(s) where the search phrase was found
if you're in a note, then it first shows the results from this note, then from its notebook, and so on up the hierarchy of notebooks
it should be easy to constrain the search space (e.g., to a particular notebook), maybe just with a click
search that is semantic
the search results are shown in a separate sidebar that you can work with for a while
Basically, something that's intuitive - one shouldn't have to RTFM to find a "secret" hotkey to just search for a word (and its variations) - you expect this to just be there and work out of the box. One also shouldn't have to use modifiers to constrain your search in a basic way. Modifiers are great when your search space is so vast and your query is so unspecific that you have to narrow it down iteratively, exclude certain parts etc.
P.S.: I liked a lot what the gentleman above created, so it could be used as a starter.
Hi, I just started using Joplin, one of the things I really don't like is the lack of help in the app either by "?" icons or useful tootltips. It would be nice if the app had decent tooltips and "?" for more help at a wiki or documentation page.
For search specifically, the tooltip could have the main search summary for "title:" etc and for more help perhaps link to "Search Syntax Documentation".
Having an advanced option a bit like in gmail wouldn't hurt either.
I would like to be able to favourite searches (I'm using the favourite add-on).
Fairly new to Joplin (seems nice and clearly has a lot of potential) and coming from Evernote, so to be honest the search is a bit of a let down. There doesn't appear to be a means of filtering (such as with tags, has attachments, etc.) and the search doesn't look to search within attachments. I've looked on some of the help pages about means of using better forms of search, but they look very techie and seem to rely on you remembering a load of multipliers to make it work. Would love to just have a similar search function to Evernote, in that it is easy and intuitive to use through the GUI, lets you search as much of your content as possible, and allows you to drill down by a means of filtering. Long term saved searches would be helpful to implement too, so you can set these up for things you search for frequently and they simply show that filtered info quickly. I'm a supporter of open source software and would dearly love to use it more, but it often seems very techie and not intuitive enough. I need software which helps me in my life and makes it easier, not which requires me to learn a whole load of tricks and makes it more difficult. Hopefully Joplin can be made better for all.
Thanks for pointing this out, I'll try to use this. But this kind of reinforces my point that this isn't really intuitive, I'd just like a filter to be able to choose things in the GUI rather than added multipliers/syntax/database query functions (whatever they're called). Features like this that are intuitive are what I feel would take Joplin to being more accessible to not techie types. Here's an example from the Joplin help pages:
This just massively puts me off. I have a busy enough life and job as it is, with a lot of technical knowledge in my own field I have to constantly keep up with, so I really don't have time to be learning loads of tricks to do what I feel should be simple intuitive stuff. I just want to get on with doing my stuff. I'm trying not to moan, I just want the developers of Joplin to know that these things are important to users (especially non techie ones) which they could do with working on. Your help is much appreciated though Steph.
Joplin is an incredible powerfull tool. This software definitively changed my life. For me there's a before and an after JOPLIN. It's multiOS, open source, free, with a great conception and powerfull functions compare to other same kind of softwares. And above all it's a "work in progress" software. I mean there are developers who works all the time to improve it, add new functions and also listen to us and can exchange with us directly (me I'm just a simple user)… That's not so common.
Like every software you need a little time to learn how it works. Same thing if you want to learn how to drive a car or whatever you want.
But I agree 1) not everything is intuitive 2) sometimes the documentation is out of date or for new developers only.
But 1) when you know how it works it's very easy to use and powerfull 2) There's this forum to ask questions…
The idea with the open source is that we are a kind of familiy and we help each others… So your analyse is true but keep the faith and welcome in this Journey...
When searching through the Joplin Help website, note that search results are grouped by their parent page. Just because the same search result shows up multiple times (for example: "Searching") doesn't mean they all pertain to your inquiry.
You showed a screenshot of the Searching section within the Joplin Data API page. That page is part of the docs intended for plugin developers, not end users.
Instead, refer to this Searching page which is intended for end users: Searching | Joplin
For long term saved searches, have you tried plugins like Note Overview? If you need shortcuts to access them, you can give them their own dedicated notebook and/or use plugins like Favorites or Note Tabs.
Of course, this says something about me, but imho it also says something about how easy it is to find it...
