TB 2.0 How to search on exact phrase?

[Dudley Brooks]

I'm trying to set up smart folders using Edit/Find/Search Messages. If
I search on "john doe" I get not only messages containing "john doe" but
also ones containing *only* "john" or *only* "doe" -- even when I
include the surrounding quote marks.

I can't use, e.g., Match *all* of the following: From contains "john"
and From contains "doe", because I want Match *any* of the following:
Subject contains "john doe" or Body contains "john doe" or From contains
"john doe" or To contains "john doe", and TB doesn't let you mix "and"
and "or" ("match all" and "match any").

So how do I search for an exact phrase? And why oh why oh why oh why oh
why does TB still not have a UI for doing Boolean search? (I don't
think 3.x has it either, does it?)

[Dudley Brooks]

This seemingly elementary question has been up for a week with no
response, so I'm trying again:

A search for "john doe", *with* quote marks, also returns "john smith"
and "jane doe" ... in fact, "john" *anywhere* in the message and "doe"
*anywhere* in the message. How do I get it to return *just* the exact
phrase "john doe"? Quote marks are the standard way in most programs.
Is there some other way in TB?

[Ken Whiton]

*-* On Sat, 03 Apr 2010, at 09:32:23 -0700,
*-* In Article <yI2dnT0P7MwF8CrW...@mozilla.org>,
*-* Dudley Brooks wrote
*-* About TB 2.0 HELP! How to search on exact phrase?

Use multiple filters.

Filter #1
Match all of the following:
Subject contains John
Subject contains Doe

Filter #2
Match all of the following:
Body contains John
Body contains Doe

Filter #3
Match all of the following:
From contains John
From contains Doe

Filter #4
Match all of the following:
To contains John
To contains Doe

This isn't perfect, because if any of the fields contains both
"John Smith" and "Jane Doe" that message will be filtered, but there
should be many fewer such "false positives" than you've been getting.

Ken Whiton
--
FIDO: 1:132/152
InterNet: kenw...@surfglobal.net.INVAL (remove the obvious to reply)

[Dudley Brooks]

Thanks. I appreciate you taking the time to answer, but unfortunatley
it doesn't answer my question (see at bottom).

Actually, searching on Body seems to search *everything* -- Subject,
From, To, as well as what I think "body" ought to mean. At least, in
2.0 it does.

> Filter #3
> Match all of the following:
> From contains John
> From contains Doe
>
> Filter #4
> Match all of the following:
> To contains John
> To contains Doe
>
> This isn't perfect, because if any of the fields contains both
> "John Smith" and "Jane Doe" that message will be filtered,

Yes, and that' exactly what I'm complaining about. That's why the
subject of this thread is "How to search on *exact* phrase".

> but there
> should be many fewer such "false positives" than you've been getting.

Not only for the reason you indicate above, but also, I suppose, because
it also wouldn't return a message in which the Subject contains "John
Smith" and the From contains "Jane Doe", say.

OK, fine (except for the problem with Body mentioned above). But since
the few other e-mail programs I've tried, and many online searches,
allow exact phrase search (usually with quote marks, but that's not
important), the question remains: Why should I have to use four filters
with eight lines to get results which are still not even as good as what
other programs can do with a single line?

And what if I'm looking for "John Doe" as just part of a more
complicated criterion?

And most importantly, you're talking about *filters*, and I'm asking
about *searches* (and saved searches). So a multi-step search is not
possible; at least, I haven't found any way to get TB 2.0 to search on
the results of a previous search (i.e. to do Search #1 followed by
Search #2 followed by ... etc.). The box that lets you choose which
folder to search on won't let you choose a Saved Search folder.

-- Dudley

>
> Ken Whiton