Attachment content confusion

realtime99
1. I am facing something that seems like a bug, but maybe I'm doing it wrong: I have a saved search collection called 'maps'. I have a bunch of items in the collection, including item 'map1' with attachment 'map1.pdf'. That attachment contains text 'ABC'. When I do advanced search 'attachment content' 'contains' 'ABC', 'map1.pdf' is found. BUT, when I add the condition 'collection' 'is' 'maps', then NO items are found. Any idea why?

2. Since I tag parent items but not attached files, I can't figure out a one-step way to find items tagged with 'read' whose attachments contain 'ABC'. Is there a way to do that or do I need to do a saved search?

3. In advanced search, I would think that 'attachment content' 'contains' 'ABC' would find items whose attachments contain 'ABC'. But it seems that instead the search finds the attachments themselves. Is there a reason that it is worded like this? If I am looking for a file that includes 'ABC' in its content, search for 'content' 'contains' 'ABC' seems correct.

Thanks for your help!
  • dstillman
    Yeah, not you — this all needs to be reworked a bit.
    When I do advanced search 'attachment content' 'contains' 'ABC', 'map1.pdf' is found. BUT, when I add the condition 'collection' 'is' 'maps', then NO items are found. Any idea why?
    Technically, child items aren't currently counted as part of collections. There's an open ticket to fix that. A workaround is to use a saved search for Collection and use "Include parent and child items of matching items", and then either do a quick search on that or use it as a parent "collection".
    Since I tag parent items but not attached files, I can't figure out a one-step way to find items tagged with 'read' whose attachments contain 'ABC'. Is there a way to do that or do I need to do a saved search?
    The only way to do that now, similar to the above, would be with a saved search for Attachment Content and "Include parent and child items of matching items" and then the tag selector (or a Tag search plus the quick bar, or a nested saved search in either direction).
    In advanced search, I would think that 'attachment content' 'contains' 'ABC' would find items whose attachments contain 'ABC'. But it seems that instead the search finds the attachments themselves.
    Discussed in https://forums.zotero.org/discussion/74599/option-recherche-avancee
  • realtime99
    > A workaround is to use a saved search for Collection and use "Include parent and child items of matching items", and then either do a quick search on that or use it as a parent "collection"

    Unfortunately, I can't use quick search because I need to do a regular expression search on full-text content. What do you mean re: parent collection? Would that or any other workarounds allow a reg ex search of a group of documents that meet a tag/collection criteria?
  • dstillman
    edited December 24, 2018
    What do you mean re: parent collection?
    Create a saved search that includes parent and child items and then select it using the Collection search condition in another search.

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