Full text search: Two problems / opening several pdfs in one window of preview

Hello!

(1) It seems that you cannot search within a saved search. If I select a saved search, and then search in the search box, nothing is returned. (If I copy the citations from the saved search into a standard collection, the search returns results.) [This is for a full text search.]

(2) If I search for "semi-structured", the search returns results for "semi" and "structured". Is there a way to search for "semi-structured". [Again, full text search.]

A related question: Suppose I want to open a set of pdfs together in one window of Preview (on OS X), so that I can search them together, how can I do this? If I highlight several citations, and choose "view pdf", then they open in separate windows.

I suppose I could write a plugin, that returned an appropriate command line command? If so, how do I get the full storage path for an attachment? Is there a simpler solution?

(The point of this is as follows: Opening several pdfs together in one Preview window means they can all be searched together, which is much easier than having to search 10 documents separately.)

Thanks!
  • 1) quick search in a saved search work - though note that some items in a saved search will be greyed out (because they weren't actually search hits - they're just connected to search hits). Those won't be searched.

    2) You mean in attachment content--> contains in the advanced search? Those should be prhase searches. Are you sure it's not working? It does for me.
  • (1) If a saved search is selected in the collections pane, and I search for "semi-structured" in the top search box, no papers show at all (the pane is blank). When I copy those citations into a collection, highlight the collection, then search (again in top search box), I get the behaviour you describe.

    (2) Here, I meant the quick search. The quick search cannot search by phrase?

    The advanced search works (thanks!!), but because we have shared groups, we cannot use the advanced search, but we have to set up saved searches, which are hard to use if you want to try out different search terms.
  • 1) check the titles in the saved search - are they in grey or in black.

    2) put it in quotation marks
  • to elaborate on 1: If you do a saved search, say, for an author, or a title, you'll only (or mostly) get top level items. The saved search will still show the attachments for context, but they're greyed out and not actually part of the saved search.
    If you now search for something using quick search that's only in the attachment content, you'll get an empty search result. Does that make sense?

    I believe checking the "include parent and child" option in the advanced search/saved search dialog would change that behavior, though haven't tested.
  • Great, many thanks Adam!!

    Do you have any thoughts on how I could get the URIs for attachements, e.g. by way of a plug in?
    Bjoern
  • Have a look at this: http://zoteromusings.wordpress.com/2013/04/23/zotero-item-uris-from-client/
    that's currently the easiest option, though getting to this via a right click menu from Zotero is generally planned, I believe.
  • But - the 8 character hash that I get via item uri doesn't match the name of the directory in storage.
  • Ok - I've solved this. I adapted an existing translater (BibLaTex) to export the attachement paths, suitable for command-line use.

    Thanks!!
    Bjoern
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