290620 - Multi folder quick search needed

Status: NEW

(Thunderbird :: Search, enhancement)

Description

[Martin]

User-Agent:       Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; Linux i686; en-US; rv:1.7.5) Gecko/20041111 Firefox/1.0
Build Identifier: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; Linux i686; en-US; rv:1.7.5) Gecko/20041111 Firefox/1.0

In addition to the Advanced Search suggestion in Bug #290616 would I like to
suggest an operator "IN" that refures to an account and ':' that refures to a
folder in an account.

The idea of this, would be to make a search look in more than one folder. As it
is now, one will have to retype the search string to every folder.

A search could look like this:

hardware IN imap:inbox

Or a more powerful example with the logical operators AND, OR from Bug #290616

subject=hardware IN imap:inbox AND local:sent
subject=hardware IN imap:inbox:trash AND local:sent

The syntex imap:inbox:trash would be equivalent to
imap:inbox AND imap:trash

In order to make the search engine more robust it should only search in the
folders that it is told to, when the IN operator is used. Hence the current
folder is not being searched.

If the current folder should be searched aswell the syntex could be:

subject=hardware IN imap:trash AND :


Reproducible: Always

Comment 1

[Gervase Markham [:gerv]]

This is an automated message, with ID "auto-resolve01".

This bug has had no comments for a long time. Statistically, we have found that
bug reports that have not been confirmed by a second user after three months are
highly unlikely to be the source of a fix to the code.

While your input is very important to us, our resources are limited and so we
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Comment 2

[Martin]

I write this so the bug isn't automatically marked as resolved.

Comment 3

[Wayne Mery (:wsmwk)]

confirming

Bug 290616 and Bug 131438 may need to be set as prerequisites

Comment 4

[Jeff Spirko]

In Thunderbird 1.5, you can search multiple folders.  Start a search, find some results, then save the search as a folder.  Under the properties of that search folder, you can select multiple mail folders in which to search for messages.

It would be nice if this same functionality were available in the search box right from the get-go.  But it seems you have to do it from a search folder.

Comment 5

[Wayne Mery (:wsmwk)]

(In reply to comment #4)
> In Thunderbird 1.5, you can search multiple folders. 

but not *selectively*, disjointed folders, for example from comment 0

subject=hardware IN imap:inbox AND local:sent
subject=hardware IN imap:inbox:trash AND local:sent

Comment 6

[David :Bienvenu]

True, but you can create a saved search folder that does that kind of search.

Comment 7

[Wayne Mery (:wsmwk)]

(In reply to comment #4)
> save the search as a folder.  Under the properties of that search
> folder, you can select multiple mail folders in which to search for messages.

I misunderstood. valid point

Comment 8

[Martin]

It is corrent that you can do it with a saved search, but it is a rather unhandy way to do an advanced search, if you only need to find one specific email.

Comment 9

[Lee_Dailey]

howdy y'all,

[1] my tbird info ...
Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.0; en-US; rv:1.8.0.2) Gecko/20060308 Thunderbird/1.5.0.2 - Build ID: 2006030803

[2] REQUEST - bug summary change
FROM -
"Multi folder search"
TO -
something that includes "quicksearch" or "quick search" as this bug/rfe _seems_ to be about quicksearch and not about edit/find/search-messages.

take care,
lee

Comment 10

[Wayne Mery (:wsmwk)]

(In reply to comment #9)
> this bug/rfe _seems_ to be about quicksearch and not about edit/find/search-messages.
> lee

comment 0 clearly states this is about "Advanced Search."  If you want this functionality for quicksearch then you will want to hook up with one of the numerous enhancement bugs and if one doesn't exist then feel free to create one.

Comment 11

[Wayne Mery (:wsmwk)]

Lee, I was mistaken, per bug author this bug IS about quick search.

Comment 12

[ovidiu]

currently I do that sometimes using a simple saved search with all msg in important (my chice ..) folders. And quick search in that. So the behavior is change folder/focus on an "All" or "Global" or "everything" and quick s.

But I admit is not quite ok for this request as it does not allow easy selecting/deselecting folders. Changing criteria or check specific folders gets you on ssearch which is same as creating a new one.

Anyway, this is a UI challenge to make it easy, where autocomplete and use of several criteria/terms is needed. This may seam a promise to touch some:
http://www.visophyte.org/blog/2008/08/19/thunderbird-contact-auto-completion-with-bubbles/
http://www.visophyte.org/blog/2008/08/19/thunderbird-full-text-search-prototype-a-la-sqlite-fts3/
 

Comment 13

[Wayne Mery (:wsmwk)]

In the direction things are going I don't see quick search aka Filter providing this.  This is closer to what gloda might eventually provide, eg from comment 0
  subject=hardware IN imap:inbox AND local:sent

Comment 14

[Kent James (:rkent)]

(In reply to comment #13)
> In the direction things are going I don't see quick search aka Filter providing
> this.  This is closer to what gloda might eventually provide

For TB3, in the early development phases there was no clear guidance as to what gloda search would ultimately provide, and what conventional search. As a result I tended to ignore improvements in conventional search until quite late in the process, when it became clear that conventional search remained an important feature of TB. Then we rushed to get some small improvements in.

It would be great if for TB 3+ there was a clear vision of what the future of conventional search is to be, so that those of us with the skills to work on it give it the appropriate emphasis.

As to the use cases implied by the current bug, one possible solution that would not be a big effort would be to add the folder-selection methods used in virtual folders to the search specification in advanced filters. I think that that is much more likely than trying to develop a custom query language for our search field, as implied by comment 0.