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Google-like search functionality

#854

Hi Benny,

I've now used the Custom Search for a while, and I must say I miss the Google style search, and I miss the option to embed search parameters into the search string.

So I'd like a single text box, and if I enter "foo" into that box, it searches for foo everywhere -- in all headers, in the body, and so on.

And if I enter "from:foo" into the box, then it searches for foo just in the From header. Similar for "subject:foo" and so on.

And if I enter "from:foo subject:bar", that means to search for a combination of these two criteria. I'm not sure what is the right combination: do we want to make it a disjunction, but emails that match both criteria are ranked higher? Or do we want to make it a conjunction?

An alternative to the above would be to improve the keyboard shortcuts when searching. For example, when I hit Command-Option-F and type "foo", then I get a little widget:

(From [V]) (contains [V]) [foo]

If I intended to search the subject header instead, I have to backtab into the header selection, but if I then type "s", that selects "string", not "Subject". So basically I have to use the cursor keys -- eww. :-)

Kai

My system: MailMate/4317 MacBookPro7,1/x86_64/2/10.9.4

Reported by Kai Grossjohann · July 19th, 2014 @ 08:24 PM

State: accepted
Milestone: none
Assigned to: benny benny

Activity

  1. benny
    benny
    • State changed from new to accepted

    Some kind of “quick search” interface is a relatively high priority
    item. I've done part of the implementation and it is likely that I'll
    provide a default quick search language similar to what you suggest, but
    it'll be possible to provide a custom language for expert users.
    Currently, the default language allows the use of “and” and
    “or”, but defaults to “and” if it is not specified.

    I haven't given much thought to ranking of search results.

    [state:accepted]

    July 22nd, 2014 @ 09:25 AM

  2. Kai Grossjohann
    Kai Grossjohann

    Awesome! I'm happy with Boolean logic, as well.

    I think sorting the search results by date makes a lot of sense for emails, and I think coming up with a good UI for ranking search results by relevance is going to be tough, because the users rely on ordering by date so much.

    July 22nd, 2014 @ 09:18 PM

  3. benny
    benny
    • State changed from accepted to fixcommitted

    It's not perfect yet, but this is part of the latest beta.

    February 11th, 2015 @ 10:32 AM

  4. benny
    benny
    • State changed from fixcommitted to fixreleased

    March 24th, 2015 @ 12:16 PM

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