Search function sub-par

MadameBlueberry

Please please can someone create a working search function?
I absolutely adore Zotero for the Organisation...but in the app there is just no working search function.

I would like to put in a single word and find where that occurs in every document. Currently I have to scroll through each or spend a lot of time adding key words...

I'd use this exclusively and happily pay a monthly or yearly fee if only there were a way to do a quick search.

Thanks!

adamsmith

Sorry, it's not quite clear what you're asking for -- is the key operator here

where that occurs in every document

, i.e. you want to search your entire library and want a preview of the search context for each hit, or what exactly are you looking for?

MadameBlueberry

I want to search everything I've got in my entire library for "lobelia" or "strokes" or other key word. I want it to then bring up everything containing those words.
Using the app, it doesn't even find what is in a title

adamsmith

Oh, that should definitely work. You're searching in the Desktop app? And in the quick search bar or in advanced search? And if in the former, in what search mode (Author, title, year or something else)?

MadameBlueberry

I get most (not all) results on the desktop app, but I don't get any whatsoever on the iPhone app

adamsmith

I don't have the iOS app, but on a technical level I think it can only search authors, title, date and the full text of the articles (the latter assuming you have full text sync enabled, which is the default in the sync preferences), so ignoring anything that's in a different field (say abstract or publication) would be expected. I believe improvements are planned, but since those would have to be at the API level first, that's probably a heavy lift, so wouldn't expect that any time soon.

If you can't find something that's literally in the "Title" field in the iOS app, though, that sounds like a bug and steps to reproduce would be helpful.

Similarly, if you're missing specific search results in the desktop app, details would help. Depending on length and quality of the text layer in PDFs, you can miss the occasional word in full texts, but you should absolutely get everything in all metadata fields (assuming you use All Fields and Tags or Eveything search mode)