521665 - Need Help documentation about doing Searches with TB ("How to find messages with TB?")

Status: RESOLVED FIXED

(Thunderbird :: Help Documentation, defect)

Description

[Thomas D. (:thomas8)]

The main pages of Thunderbird Help don't seem to provide any reference whatsoever on the topic of "How to find messages with Thunderbird". I am finding that weird as search power is said to be one of the most important features of Thunderbird. And users will /definitely/ need help for the new "Search messages" quick search option. It's not clear at all how that search works and what it finds, not even to more advanced users like myself.

Most notably:

1) FAQ (http://www.mozilla.org/support/thunderbird/faq)
Subsection: Usage
- nothing about searching/finding messages here
- should add at least basic information (quicksearch filters, search all messages, find in messages, advanced search messages)

2) Tips & Tricks (http://www.mozilla.org/support/thunderbird/tips)
- nothing here either
- should provide some examples of more tricky searches (how to find a message sent by peter with "holiday" in the subject? how to find all messages from Peter OR Susi?)
- probably needs new category: "Using the Program", "Common tasks" or similar (maybe that was one of the two out of four categories that got lost in the cleanout, see bug Bug 521660)

The reason why I posted this:

It wasn't until this day (having used TB for ages) that I found out you can actually use search terms like "Peter|Susi" in quick search filters and it will do an OR search for all msgs matching /either/ of terms.

You know how I found out?
By looking at comments in source code of
http://mxr.mozilla.org/comm-central/source/mail/base/modules/quickSearchManager.js while implementing patch for Bug 271222 (Implement "Entire message filter" quick search feature (can't filter for whole msg fulltext, need missing quicksearch option))

I mean, this is a cool feature, but normal user will NEVER EVER KNOW for a lifetime. Shame.

Comment 1

[Thomas D. (:thomas8)]

see, I'm already getting confused with the search options...
typo fix for comment #0:

And users will definitely need help for the new "Search _all_ messages" quick search option. Yea, they will!

Comment 2

[Ben Slade]

Also see confusing option settings required to search IMAP email bodies in https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=535139 (IMAP w/SSL requires "Keep messages on this computer" to be enabled, and per folder "Download" options to be checked)

Comment 3

[Roland Tanglao needinfo please :rolandtanglao, :mohnkuchen, :adobo, :sinigang, :roland]

there's a draft SuMoMo KB article at:
https://stage.support.mozillamessaging.com/en-US/kb/Global+Search

Comment 4

[Ludovic Hirlimann [:Usul]]

(In reply to comment #3)
> there's a draft SuMoMo KB article at:
> https://stage.support.mozillamessaging.com/en-US/kb/Global+Search

By default, the search is performed in all fields in the message: subject, message body, From address, To address, etc. To search a specific field, click the arrow to the right of the search area and select the desired field from the drop-down list: 

Maybe you should point out that when searching for a specific field restricts the search to the current folder ?

Comment 5

[jenzed]

Thanks ludo - I made a note in https://stage.support.mozillamessaging.com/en-US/kb/Global+Search regarding the restriction