filtering search for saved web pages?

[igoldsmid]

Suppose I want to search for a keyword in ANY saved web page....

I can try advanced search, but using the attribute "URL", or Web Page - if I just define it as "exists", the search returns many results that are NOT web pages. I can't use (a downloaded web related) icon as an "equals" search filter, as my web pages have saved with all sorts of icons.

So how can I most easily search for one or more key words, and filter the results to occurances of those keywords just within the whole set of saved-web-pages (without having to define an elaborate array of excluded icons or other attributes to remove outlook, and other document types in search results))?

Thanks

[igoldsmid]

Until I understand a better way to construct an advanced search to find keywords, in document type/saved web pages, I have constructed a complex filter - and yet, these (icon) filters don't work - please see attached screen shot...

[kevina]

The simplest would be an Advanced Search of Url Matches Wildcard http://*, which will ensure existence + ensure the url is a http url.

[igoldsmid]

instruction seems straightforward, but results don't tally - see screen shot...

[igoldsmid]

Ok, so I sorted the results - then selected only and all the web pages (in the search results pane) - 80 of them - and dragged them to a folder in the tree - but it wouldn't copy the items - see attached screen shot - this error also occured attemting this same operation with a mouse right click then copy command onto a folder in tree.

By the way, when right clicking on search results, why is 'Copy' the only command available - why can I not drag search results, and with right click context menu, 'Link' rather than copy them into a new folder in the tree?

[kevina]

The reason your search is not working as expected is the indented OR criteria row.

All the AND criterias are not indented, but the OR clause is, meaning all the AND criteria must be true or just the one OR clause (which is obviously not your intent).

The solution for that particular search would be to not indent the OR clause, but indent all the ANDed Icon comparisons so they are indented together.

This will cause the two ORed clauses to be one expression, and all the indented icon clauses will be another (with the first AND relationship at that indent level defining the relationship these two expressions).

Back to your original question: Another more definitive way to create an Advanced Search for web pages, would be a search on a DocType value of <= 2. DocType is an internal value (turned off by default) that reflects the type of data the document is. You can enable display of this attribute at Tools | Options | Attributes <tab>, by checking it in the list.

[igoldsmid]

So I have a set of search results - and I want to add an attrbute to all, an attribute that some in the list already have... but when I go to insert that attribute, I can't find it in the list of available attributes. This only happens when selecting a set of items where a sub-set already have the attribute that I want to 'bulk add' to the whole set in one operation. How do I perform this addition of an attribute to such a result set without having to mess around doing another search to find the delta?

Also, still can't drag and drop, or copy search results from the result set to a new folder in the tree - reference screen shot in last message... ?? I guess its best to copy the saved search in any case?



Thanks

[kevina]

The ability to link from Search Results is high on our todo list, the question you raise about adding an attribute to Search Results where it is already assigned to some but not all has not been raised before, but is also a valid request. We will put this high on the list as well. When an attribute is added, it is added with a NULL value (the current behaviour prevents existing attribute values from being overwritten - it needs to be modified to not update existing attributes).

Currently you need to navigate from the Search Info Items (individually) to their location in the Data Explorer by dbl-clicking, then linking. This obviously isn't very convenient for mass linking them all.

[kevina]

Currently you can fairly easily accomplish adding the attribute as you requested by adding one more search criteria of <attribute> "does not exist" to your existing search.

The two ways of "fixing" the current multiple item selection with mismatched attributes are (that I can think of):
1) instead of only showing only the attributes common to all the selected Info Items, show a superset of every attribute assigned to at least one selected Info Item
->Advantage: you could just assign a value to this attribute to ensure it exists for the entire selection
->Disadvantage: instead of a small list of common attributes, you would have a very large list of potentially unrelated attributes
->Disadvantage: assigning a value to this attribute would overwrite the value of any existing attributes

2) leave what is displayed in the Item Attributes pane the same, but allow adding the attribute even though it does exist for some (but not all) of the selected Items (adding it with a NULL value but leaving the values where already existing).
->Advantage: this would continue showing a limited, common list of attributes
->Disadvantage: this behavior would be different from the current behavior in that adding an attribute wouldn't leave all the selected Info Items with identical values for the specified attribute after the add (which is more generally consistent)

Initially I was thinking that option 1 was desireable, but after considering it more, I believe #2 is better, but I am not entirely convinced that it is better than the current behavior.