Upgrade StorageFeature request: Separate reusable search methods from search terms
Zotero’s Advanced Search offers increasingly specific combinations of search conditions, but it remains oriented toward saving a complete, concrete query. For research workflows, it would be much more useful to separate how/where to search from what to search for.
Desired model:
Search method: "Aspect search"
Annotation → Tag
OR Annotation → Comment
OR Note → Tag
OR Note → Text
This method should be saveable and reusable. A search term such as X, Y or Z should be entered separately and, ideally, saved independently if desired.
This is particularly useful because tags need not describe only content. They can also be goal-oriented retrieval markers:
Annotation tag X= “I want to retrieve this specific passage when researching the aspect X.”
The same aspect can therefore be represented in annotation tags, note tags, annotation comments and note text.
The search method should deliberately exclude general PDF full-text search, while allowing a restricted text search in annotation comments and note contents. This would produce a practical high-recall aspect search:
Annotation Tag contains X
OR Note Tag contains X
OR Annotation Comment contains X
OR Note Text contains X
The important distinction is therefore:
Save what is being searched and save how/where it is searched as separate, composable objects.
This would turn Zotero’s powerful but highly specific search machinery into a more goal-oriented research tool without requiring users to construct a new complex search for every aspect they want to investigate.
Desired model:
Search method: "Aspect search"
Annotation → Tag
OR Annotation → Comment
OR Note → Tag
OR Note → Text
This method should be saveable and reusable. A search term such as X, Y or Z should be entered separately and, ideally, saved independently if desired.
This is particularly useful because tags need not describe only content. They can also be goal-oriented retrieval markers:
Annotation tag X= “I want to retrieve this specific passage when researching the aspect X.”
The same aspect can therefore be represented in annotation tags, note tags, annotation comments and note text.
The search method should deliberately exclude general PDF full-text search, while allowing a restricted text search in annotation comments and note contents. This would produce a practical high-recall aspect search:
Annotation Tag contains X
OR Note Tag contains X
OR Annotation Comment contains X
OR Note Text contains X
The important distinction is therefore:
Save what is being searched and save how/where it is searched as separate, composable objects.
This would turn Zotero’s powerful but highly specific search machinery into a more goal-oriented research tool without requiring users to construct a new complex search for every aspect they want to investigate.