I’m probably being a tad thick, but when you save a search, how do you retrieve it again?
Check in the Binder, probably near the bottom. You will see a “smart folder” type of icon titled as you called the search. Simply double click on it to run the search again. It is not actually a smart folder, it doesn’t need to be.
Yet again, AmberV has saved me the effort of answering - thanks, AmberV! 
Yes, it looks very much like a smart folder, except instead of a picture of a cog it has a picture of a magnifying glass (a very tiny - literally - difference). They are the only items in the binder that are activated by a double click. They also can’t be dragged inside other groups, but have to remain in the root, and they cannot accept children. They are rather unique.
All the best,
Keith
Now that is very, very neat!
Thanks chaps!
I don’t suppose you could add a search folder and just put them all in there?
Mmm …
No, I think they’re better off where they are …
Oh, this is a feature I missed, somehow. I was missing smart folders, but this is just as good. Thanks for asking about this one and thanks to AmberV for answering!
Oh dear. More thinking … 
Now, it’s probably just me, but it looks like the search behaves a little differently to the rest of the items in the browser. For one thing, you have to double click on it. The other thing is that it makes the other items in the browser disappear (replaced by the search results).
And single click on a savd search gives you a blank document; perhaps it should just give you the name of the search in the window (that’s just my blank document paranoia coming out again).
I can’t help thinking that the browser window should be left alone. Now that I’m playing with it, I think that the search shouldn’t interfere with the browser window either.
Unfortunately, I can’t think of anywhere else to put them.
The best I could think of, is that a search could open up a split pane in the browser window; all your regular stuff remains on top, but the search results go in the pane underneath.
When you delee the search criteria from box in the toolbar, the secondary pane closes and you get your full browser back again.
This won’t change. Yes, the saved search items work very differently from other items in the browser. The whole idea, though, is that they are saved searches. So when you run them… they just recreate your original search. I am actually very happy with them. Yes, they work differently from smart folders or anything like this in other programs, but they work. Like I say, there will be no changes to the way saved searches work because I really like them.
All the best,
Keith
Fairynuff …
I see what you’re saying. I’ve probably grown quite used to the ‘smart folder’ as opposed to the saved search, which as you say, is quite different.
I quite like them, too. Smart Folders in an application like Scrivener would be slower than what you might be used to with other applications, which are database … based (har). That would become a limiting factor in how many you could have. The way it works now, they use zero processor and memory until you double-click on them. The only limit is how many you can tolerate having in your Binder. Keep them below the Trash, and that could be quite a few.
I also think it is interesting that you can keep Synopsis, Keywords, and so on for your saved searches. They will even come up in search results themselves. This could be useful, in theory, and turning them into a single-click activation would destroy that ability.
Incidentally, there are various reasons that saved searches are limited to being stored at the root-level. One is that in corkboard and outliner view, double-clicking on an icon opens that document - but double-clicking on a saved-search icon would change the contents of the binder, which could be very confusing. There’s also the fact that they cannot have any children (that would just be confusing given that then you would think their children were part of the saved search, when in fact they were not). I am sure there were some other reasons that saved searches had to be stored at the binder-level, but now that I come to try to recall them… I can’t.
Mmm. yes I think I haven’t been clear enough. I wasn’t asking for Keith to implement smart folders, as I realise that would mean doing a lot of time consuming indexing (and would probably require another file store) to make it work; and at this level, I don’t think it would really bring that much to Scrivener; it’s a writing tool, not an information retrieval application.
What I was looking at, was just making the existing search put the results in a pane, rather than taking over the whole browser window.
If the search results were in a separate pane, then you even execute another search, without having to clear your first search to get the full browser view back again.
Nope, storing the searches at the root level is fine. Chances are that folk would prefer to get to them quickly from there anyway.
What I was actually talking about, was a separate pane for the search results.
Yes, I understand that, I was just needlessly explaining. Anyway, like I said earlier, I really don’t want a separate pane as the whole point is that a “Saved Search” is just that - something that will recreate the search exactly as it was (hence the need for a double-click).
All the best,
Keith
Apologies if this has already been covered elsewhere.
I think I understand the explanation above, but the problem with storing them all at the root level is that there can be quite a lot of them. (Or, more precisely, if I could use Scrivener for some of the tasks I would like to use Scrivener for, there would be quite a lot of them.)
At the very least I’d like a folder labeled “Saved Searches.”
(I will admit, though, that I am on the steep part of the pre-use learning curve, trying to figure out if this is the right answer, so I may not be seeing the software’s full flexibility.)
There was talk of something like this. Basically the Binder would look a bit like iTunes does, where there are collapsible sections. Saved searches would be in one section, the draft in another, and everything else in a third. We never saw prototypes of it, but Keith decided it looked really silly in a writing application, so that was that.
You could try putting all of your saved searches down at the very bottom of the Binder list, below the Trash. Then they do not get in the way of the other stuff, and it is a quick flick of the mouse scroll to reveal them.
The main reason that they cannot be put inside a folder is this: double-clicking on a saved search changes the binder into a search list. If you could put them in a folder, then they could appear on the corkboard or in the outliner. In that situation, you could double-click on the icon of the saved search in the outliner and corkboard, and this would change the contents of the binder to the search list. This just doesn’t feel “right” - for an action in the corkboard or outliner to change the contents of the binder.
Best,
Keith
…is the only other option to put the Saved Searches loose in the
binder list? I expect to have a lot of them, and as it is, I can’t get
them out of the way or give them any structure other than putting them
next to each other. For everything else, the user has a lot of ability
to adapt the software’s presentation to his or her own organizational
scheme – in this case, flexibility seems really limited.
Would it be possible to create something like a “Saved Searches HUD”
that would allow more flexibility in organization?
One last thought – saved searches already seem to me to violate the
“replacing the binder contents” prohibition. Is it really any more
disorienting for the binder contents to go away because I clicked
something on the corkboard than for the binder contents to go away
because I clicked something on the binder? To me at least, neither one feels any more wrong than the other.
I think the real answer for me is to not used Saved Searches, but rather do everything with keywords.
Other places to consider for the location of saved searches:
- In their own menu, like the scripts menu in many apps
- In a submenu, like the Recent Projects submenu.
- In a separate window, like saved snapshots
-Steve
Duplicate of above. Sorry.