Can't search child notes and attachment content when tag is selected

dpanchuk

When I pre-select articles from My Library using a tag and then search for a specific text that I left inside the notes, the search returns no results.

The search function works fully, however, when I use folders (not tags) for pre-selecting the papers. What could be the matter here? I tried the beta version as well, and the problem is still there. Thanks.

dstillman

A search matches specific parent or child items. If a tag is on the parent item and you filter by that tag, the child items will be gray, meaning they're non-matches, and a search won't find them, because it's showing the intersection of the tag and the search term.

You can create a saved search for [Tag] [is] [foo] with "Include parent and child items of matching items" checked and then use the search bar within that, however.

dstillman

There's a valid practical problem here, and we could consider changing how this works, but it's complicated by the fact that (for better or for worse) a child item can be tagged separately, whereas a child item can't exist independently within a collection. So when you click on a tag, it's appropriate for it to show you matches (black) vs. non-matches (gray), and it would be somewhat confusing for the search bar to then still match the gray, non-matching items. Similarly, if you search for a word in "Title, Creator, Year" mode (which only matches parent items), should the tag selector still show tags that only exist on the gray child items, even though those don't actually match the search?

dpanchuk

I see what you mean.
I tried creating a saved search as you suggested, and it works for my purposes. Thanks a lot.

One day, I think it would also be helpful for Zotero to show small snippets of text from the notes/annotations/attachments corresponding to a search query. I think it was also a great idea to implement annotation tagging like you did in the beta version as I often hunt for specific ideas within my notes. If those changes were to be done I would not even need any extra note taking/searching software to complement Zotero. Thanks again for your work!

dstillman

I think it would also be helpful for Zotero to show small snippets of text from the notes/annotations/attachments corresponding to a search query

Yes, this is definitely planned. It's just awaiting some underlying technical changes to the items list.

dpanchuk

This is awesome! Thank you.