Hi, fellow scriveners!
Searching for something similar I only found this link, but it’s very old and for MacOS.
Is there a way to search for all document in Draft folder which lack a synopsis? I’d like to create a dynamic collection with them.
I’ve tried an empty regex ^\s*$, but no results are returned.
Any ideas?
Not aware of but if check synopsis on outline would be easy to find if put draft in outline view. I would add to static collection and remove as add synopsis.
I have an idea, but it would only help you in the future. Not in the current case.
If you create your projects from a custom template, you could have that template create new documents from a document template. In this document template, you’d have a special character in the synopsis. (Say : Ω – it doesn’t matter which, as long as it is not gonna be used elsewhere, anywhere.) … When writing a synopsis you’d delete it. And so, searching for this character would return all documents with an empty synopsis.
⮚ Could also be ΩΩΩΩΩ if you want a stronger visual. It makes no difference for the dynamic collection/search, and a simple double click would select them all (the character bunch). ⮚⮚Double-click, input your synopsis. – Effectively deleting/overwriting your ΩΩΩΩΩ.
∅ … ∅∅∅ … ∅∅∅∅∅
⊘ … ⊘⊘⊘ … ⊘⊘⊘⊘⊘
. . . . . . . .
You could at this point patiently go through the whole of your documents in outline view (with the synopsis displayed), and add such a special character to your documents’ synopsis when none.
And then create your dynamic collection.
(You can set that special character to be removed (replaced with nothing) at compile.)
BTW, you could save the dynamic collection in the project template as per my first paragraph’s description.
I don’t remember whether the “invert search” option existed in 2009, but it does now.
Use the asterisk wild card to search for all items with a synopsis, then Invert Results to find all the items that don’t meet the search criteria.
Yes, this is the modern approach. The only thing to be aware of in particular to Windows (and why I’ll leave this thread here instead of combining it with the existing thread on “NOT” searching in the Mac section) is that the implementation isn’t quite correct. It considers optional search scoping to be a part of what is not being looked for, when in fact those should modify, or filter, the overall results. For example, if you select the Draft Only option then inverting the results will not only discover items without a synopsis, but anything and everything not in the Draft, even if it has a synopsis. It should instead only show you items in the draft that do not have a synopsis.
So to get the best results use “Reset Search Options” first, and then only change the Search In setting to “Synopsis” and then of course the “Invert Results” setting. You’ll just have to ignore the chaff if you don’t want research items, trashed stuff, etc., which is usually not too difficult as the results are given in binder order.
Yes, I tried this, but for the reasons you mention it will not be of use to create a dynamic collection, since every time new documents are added outside the Draft folder they would be added to the collection as well.
Would you consider this to be added to the bug list, please?
Many thanks in advance.