fto
March 8, 2022, 4:09pm
1
Hey, I must confess: In all the years I’ve been using Scrivener, I’ve never really understood the search function.
In DevonThink when I want to find house, but not household, I search for “house”.
Does anyone know how to do this with Scrivener?
Thank you
kewms
March 8, 2022, 5:47pm
2
Choose the Whole Word option from the Search Options dropdown menu. (The disclosure triangle at the left of the Project Search bar will get you there.)
1 Like
fto
March 8, 2022, 6:37pm
3
Thank you kewms. I’m afraid this is the answer/solution of an English speaking person
Other languages have compound words like gardenparty or rosegardenstairs.
So if I choose „Whole Word“ and search for „house“ and „garden“
“Household” is not found (as desired) but neither „gardenparty“.
In other apps you can search for „house“ (Quotation marks = „Whole Word“) and garden (finds every word that contains garden)
Is this really not possible with Scrivener?
kewms
March 8, 2022, 6:59pm
4
English has compound words, too.
For this kind of combined search, probably the most flexible choice is our RegEx search, see Section 11.7 in the (Mac) Scrivener manual.
I am confused… why not just use this setting ?
fto
March 8, 2022, 7:04pm
6
Because this setting finds “wonderful” when I only want to find wonder
Isn’t this sentence self-contradicting ?
fto
March 8, 2022, 7:09pm
8
I dont think so. I would like to find only house (one word) and all words with garden (compound)
kewms
March 8, 2022, 7:09pm
9
The issue is that the OP would like to find a whole word in one case (“house,” but not “household”) but not another (both “garden” and “gardenparty”).
I see. I guess then the search would have to be able to handle some function the like of “garden*”…
→ word + *
fto
March 8, 2022, 7:17pm
11
exactly kewms. I looked up section 11.7. You want me to learn a syntax to do a simple search?
gr
March 8, 2022, 7:24pm
12
Yeah, the OP failed to mention at the outset they were tying to do a boolean search. So, giving the precise answer to their initial question does not solve their problem. RegEx does sound like the way.
fto
March 8, 2022, 7:28pm
13
So there is no easy way with quotes or asterisks like in Devonthink?
gr
March 8, 2022, 8:24pm
14
I am reading the Manual’s coverage of the search function the same way you are. So, no.
But is there some important reason you need to search for these two disparate things in a single search? If you don’t want to mess with RegEx, just perform two searches. That would make sense on the assumption you are hunting up both because there is a change to be made to both.
3 Likes
Yes, and perhaps create a collection.
Surely that ain’t an everyday thing anyways…
Or ask for the * search function on the wishlist. That would make sense. I guess one day I might need it too.
fto
March 8, 2022, 8:42pm
16
Thanks for your help What do you mean by just perform two searches?
fto
March 8, 2022, 8:49pm
17
Vincent_Vincent:
Or create a collection.
and then search only in the collection? Mm, this could be a workaround, but a bit complicated…
Search one word by criteria. → create collection.
Search the other word by the other criteria. → add to collection.
Search the collection. → Many (if not all) of the "wonderful"s will be left out of the collection. At least it is narrower this way.
Beside using RegEx, there is no absolute answer to your original (intended) question.
fto
March 8, 2022, 8:56pm
19
Yes, that could work. Thank you Vincent. Is this the same gr means with “just perform two searches”?
I think so, kind of, yes.
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