v4.0.3 search doesn't work properly

[Peter]

It is not possible to search for a string within a string. If I search "buddy" it finds "session buddy" but not "sessionbuddy" (no space between the two words).
How can I search for just part of the expression?

If I do a compound search it finds all of the matches for all of the individual search terms. For instance, searching for "summer vacation" it will show matches for just "summer", just "vacation" and for "summer vacation".

How can I search for exact phrase?

[Session Buddy Support]

Substring matching is not something search engines commonly do because it's both highly inefficient and not super useful given the way most people craft search terms. Try it in Gmail, for example, or Windows search, MacOS, Google, etc.

Like many search engines, SB matches on the beginnings of words.

FWIW, items (eg, links) matching more of the terms you're searching for will score higher and appear at the top of ranked results in the search dropdown. This will improve over time (eg, scoring adjacent matches higher).

Search in general will continue to improve, including with support for quoted phrases.

Hans

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[Peter]

Substring matching works correctly in Microsoft Word 

You are right it doesn't work in Gmail and Windows Search, but that is the reason why people use 3rd party tools.

Would it be possible to implement substring match?

It is just one simple text db, so it should not affect performance seriously.

Or put there option in settings to turn it on / off.

Thx a lot.

[Peter]

Substring matching works correctly in e.g. Microsoft Word.

You are right it doesn't work in Gmail and Windows Search and that is the reason why people use 3rd party search tools...

Is it so tough to implement?

Especially as we are talking about just one text db...

On Thursday, April 4, 2024 at 4:12:30 PM UTC+2 Session Buddy Support wrote:

[Session Buddy Support]

> Substring matching works correctly in e.g. Microsoft Word

Well sure, text editors and word processors are a different animal with different user expectations and use cases.

> Is it so tough to implement?

The issue is it doesn't scale well, and some people have thousands of collections.

Additionally, it would produce excessive and unexpected results given what most users expect based on how virtually all search works.

Hans

To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/sessionbuddy-discuss/27501576-985f-4b26-8ae6-b0f152917fb0n%40googlegroups.com.

[JP]

Hey Hans

Those statements were originally written by me in another post in another thread (https://groups.google.com/g/sessionbuddy-discuss/c/QSC11uvZ8tU/m/tcf_uq8qAAAJ)

I don't understand the need to transplant them outside that thread. I really don't think there was such a need. In any case, not big of a deal, and as I originally wrote that and as it was answered here, I will also reply here.

That is just part of a group of features that existed in the previous version and that I noticed that I am missing. And in v3 it was possible to perform those types of searches (substring matching). If the decision to implement that changed for this new version, it's too bad because it was something I used extensively. Oh well.

But, for now, I guess there are bigger fish to fry.



Cheers,
JP

[Peter]

would it be possible to have an option in settings to turn substring search on / off with information tool tip that search can took longer if thousands of collections are within db?

[Session Buddy Support]

I appreciate that this is something that's important to you.

Unfortunately it's necessary for us to strike a balance between accommodating everyone's wishes and managing settings bloat and implementation complexity. This can be challenging.

In this case it seems that the costs outweigh the value to the majority of our users, so we currently have no plans to add this feature, opt-in or otherwise.

Thanks for understanding.

Sincerely,

Hans

To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/sessionbuddy-discuss/c12db257-593f-4c1e-abbe-b978000fa7dbn%40googlegroups.com.

[JP]

As for me, I can truly say that I understand and accept your decision. Session Buddy is a work in progress and you have invested a lot of time and effort to bring it up to the latest standards.

Besides minor details, I would say that for me the most important features at the moment are drag-and-drop and tags/labels. Could you tell me which level of priority do you consider for those two?

Thanks Hans.

Cheers

JP

[Session Buddy Support]

> drag-and-drop priority

In the top 10 among the "major" features.

> tags/labels priority

Much lower at the moment.

Hans

To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/sessionbuddy-discuss/3d2cdbe9-6419-47d0-8ffc-d9f5bb76b480n%40googlegroups.com.

[Martin Huber]

I understand the situation, but I hope you change your mind a bit and revisit this topic after the most pressing things are done. Maybe you could introduce an asterisk wildcard to do such a partial search?
This is how I almost always use search tools, I nearly never type the whole words.

Greetings, Martin

[Session Buddy Support]

> This is how I almost always use search tools

Which search tools that you use outside of text search within a file or document support this?

> I nearly never type the whole words

To be clear, you don't need to type whole words. Matching is on the beginning of words.

Hans

To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/sessionbuddy-discuss/7822aedc-6a34-4244-87d0-fd50b2b845f3n%40googlegroups.com.

[Martin Huber]

> Which search tools that you use outside of text search within a file or document support this?

- Searching for a file in TotalCommander
- Searching/Selecting something in a SQL Database
- Using Wildcards for all kinds of searching/matching in Powershell

But you are right, most usecases are inside of large documents like excel or text

In Sessionbuddy I think I would use this mostly when I vaguely remember a part of a link that's buried deep in history (which doesn't work yet, I know)

> To be clear, you don't need to type whole words. Matching is on the beginning of words.

Ah I see now. When I search for "visual" it finds "visualstudio" while "studio" doesn't.

Knowing this lessens the pain a bit :)

[Howie S]

Hans, jumping in here RE: 

> Which search tools that you use outside of text search...?

My own most used daily utility, in this case for file searching, is Everything search: Everything search by voidtools

If you have never used it, I strongly suggest taking a look, as it implements search along with options for powerful advanced modifiers. I could not imagine living without it! (Link to all search options, parameters) 

The implementation of that program might provide some inspiration and/or ideas.

Howie

[Session Buddy Support]

Thanks for the recommendation, Howie. That looks like a pretty useful tool. OS-based search has always seemed kind of lacking.

I'll take a look at the features/options for inspiration.

Cheers,

Hans

To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/sessionbuddy-discuss/d48c6206-3128-447c-88b0-bec5b349c392n%40googlegroups.com.

[Martin Huber]

WOW thank you Howie, Everything search is a godsend!! No long indexing, instant resultfiltering.... just wow.

[Neil Yuan]

Hey Hans,

I hope this message finds you well. I wanted to provide some feedback regarding the recent update to v4 of your plugin.

Since the update, I've noticed a significant decline in the search experience for CJK (Chinese, Japanese, Korean) languages. Previously, the plugin efficiently retrieved relevant results for CJK characters. However, with the latest update, CJK characters are only recognized if they follow English letters or Arabic numerals. This change has greatly hindered the usability of the plugin for CJK language users like myself.

I kindly request if it would be possible to reintroduce the previous search method, which utilized string matching and provided a more satisfactory experience for CJK language searches. Offering an option to choose between the current search method and the previous one would greatly enhance the versatility of your plugin.

Thank you for considering my feedback. I'm hopeful for improvements that will restore the seamless experience for all users.

Sincerely,

Neil

[Session Buddy Support]

> more satisfactory experience for CJK language searches

This requires some thought.

One possible solution (in the short term at least) might be to revert to naive substring matching (ie, ignoring word boundaries) if CJK chars are detected. That would be pretty straightforward to implement.

Hans

To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/sessionbuddy-discuss/c56c97d5-37d6-4f3d-80e8-f2809739c08fn%40googlegroups.com.

[Peter]

would it be possible to have an option to choose if we want naive substring matching or new search method also for english text?

i really prefere substring matching (e.g. to find "ing" in "speaking")

[Session Buddy Support]

> option to choose if we want naive substring matching

Sure, but likely through an experimental flag rather than a checkbox exposed through Settings.

Hans

To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/sessionbuddy-discuss/24d70bdc-61a2-42f7-8ecf-894715b31f03n%40googlegroups.com.

[Peter]

i can accept it.

is there already such flag available?

if not would you mind it implement it in next version?

i think you enabled the same way to increase the threshold when delayed-load of tabs start... (now not needed as there is already option in settings to completely turn it off).

[Session Buddy Support]

> is there already such flag available?

Not yet.

If not in the next release then soon thereafter.

Hans

To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/sessionbuddy-discuss/8028f6f4-3317-4eb2-886d-346b8a3aafdcn%40googlegroups.com.

[Peter]

appreciate it.

i would pray that you decide to put it in the next release ;-)

[Sergey Sanovich]

Thank you for an amazing extension!

In my case, search in Russian stopped working completely. 100%. Never shows a single result to even a basic one-word query. (English works fine, though I am still adopting to how it has changed.)

[Sergey Sanovich]

I waited patiently for the update, but I don't see the search working in other languages again. I checked French and Russian, and neither works. Any idea how to fix that?

[Session Buddy Support]

We have some ideas but this will take some time to explore and fix. Lots of other high priority items to address currently but we'll try to get to this one soon.

Thanks for your patience.

Hans

To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/sessionbuddy-discuss/4efb2a88-4a80-4b20-be69-3d352b2f9dc9n%40googlegroups.com.

[Sergey Sanovich]

Dear Hans,

wanted to ask about the progress on the language issue. As you obviously understand, this is not some feature, even an important one (I did like that you can click on the tab name, not just URL afterwards, but that doesn't make the tool unusable). I can't use the tool almost at all because, for me, search is not working at all, 100%. Really hope it will be addressed soon enough.

Sergey

[Session Buddy Support]

I totally understand and agree with you about the importance of fixing the language issue. It needs to be fixed.

That said, the economics of providing a free product limit our resources considerably so we have to do a fair bit of triage. Rest assured it is near the top of current priorities and will be addressed as soon as possible.

FWIW, you can dbl-click the tab name to open it.

Hans

To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/sessionbuddy-discuss/5d7503e1-eeb5-4a6d-ab5c-962280b2af61n%40googlegroups.com.

[jo...@ajollylife.com]

Found this thread when trying to figure out why sb search wasn't returning all expected results 

(and I am a long time search everything user) 

And while gmail search isn't powerful enough to do a substring search, outlook search is.

-Jolly

[Sergey Sanovich]

Hi Hans,

when I first wrote here, in May, I didn't look into the details, just reported a problem. It is 7 months since then, and search is still not working in (any?) language other than English. But you said earlier that the short-term workaround would be to revert to naive substring matching, which could be enabled by an experimental flag. Can you do that?

Yours,

Sergey

[Daniel]

I'm really looking forward to the other languages in search fix too

[Session Buddy Support]

I realize it's been a while. Given an extension of this size, complexity, and user base, there are lots of things competing for bandwidth.

Furthermore, bandwidth is limited because SB doesn't currently have a revenue stream or funding. We're working on remedying this. In the meantime, I appreciate your patience. We haven't forgotten.

Hans

To view this discussion visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/sessionbuddy-discuss/9ea81248-c9ea-4d68-a645-722a896b5d2dn%40googlegroups.com.

[Sergey Sanovich]

Hi! Any hope for fixing the search and languages anytime soon? Permanent, or even a temporary workaround?