Bug or feature? Zotero search does not find notes with keyword in title

ghiozzo

If I have a note with a certain title (typically first line in note == title) that title is displayed in Zotero (right hand pane, list of bibliography-items).
But if I search for a word using the textbox (top right of Zotero Window), my note is not displayed as result of the search, even if the keyword and note title are identical.

Bug or feature? (for me, it's a bug)
otherwise: Zotero rocks :-)

dstillman

To match note content, use "All Fields & Tags" mode.

"Title, Creator, Year" doesn't match notes, which don't actually have a title, even though they display the first line in the items list. We could consider matching the first line with "Title, Creator, Year" mode, but generally people are probably trying to search in notes more broadly.

fornat

Hi Dan

Thanks for your answer.

You write:
""Title, Creator, Year" doesn't match notes, which don't actually have a title, even though they display the first line in the items list."

I think that's just exactly what confused me and possibly other users: as long as any item (e.g. a note) is being displayed with a "title" in the title column of the items list, then it should also be found when searching for keywords in search-mode "title, creator, year".

From that user interface-logic standpoint I would find it great if you / your team could change Zotero's behaviour.

dstillman

Oh, the other issue, noted on an open ticket we have for this, is that "Title, Creator, Year" only matches top-level items, so even if we did this, it would only match standalone notes.

ghiozzo

That would be fine to my personal user interface logic, because the standalone notes are listed in the list of items as items with an apparent title.

Non-standalone notes are "obviously" secondary child notes of items. To me, it makes sense that in such cases notes will not be found with a "title-search".

BUT this user interface logic might not be shared by everyone....

adamsmith

yeah, I understand the confusion, but as a practical matter, I don't love the idea of note "titles" being found in the title, creator, year search. I (and I suspect a fair amount of others) use that search mode specifically to find literature when I have a pretty clear idea what I'm looking for already, and notes would be out of place in the results.