Searching by label

I have many more labels than are normally shown on the left panel. Furthemore, it is hard to find the label, as they are listed by frequency, not alphabetically. Given that I know the name of the label, is it possible to search for it directly from the search bar (optionally with completion)?

Stephen

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That’s related to another thread about sorting labels (see below)

We thought about including label search in the main search bar but it’s not completely trivial as there would be some clash with the real-time search we do. It’s relatively easy when you need to hit “Enter” to activate a search. If the search term is part of a label we could offer to show the content of a label instead of searching the Library for the term. Then the user can decide to hit enter or to select the label. In our case it’s not that clear when to show and remove the label selection option. I can’t remember having seen something similar in the wild in other applications.

But we’ll think about it. It’s always fun to find new solutions to problems like that.

Thanks. How about if a user specifies a label using a prefix character, e.g. #work with the search only updating once the label is completed?

The problem with using filters as a solution is that it only works for one label at a time, while the true benefit of labels is being able to attach multiple labels to an item. With the current implementation one would have to conduct multiple filter searches when trying to use labels. This would not be necessary if they were ordered alphabetically. (Also, as I mentioned before, the current system adds further confusion by moving label’s position in the list as soon as new items have been added to that label.)

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We thought about this more and I think we came up with a very nice solution to this problem. As always I can’t promise when we get to it but it’s definitely on our radar now.

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any update?

I’m afraid not. We will have some nice new things for labels hopefully with a release this Sunday but this did not make it in.

any luck this time?

Sorry, no news here. I truly hate to dissapoint some of our most loyal users with such a long waiting time for an important feature.

However, we’ve grouped this feature together with some other improvements of the search box (including full text search of PDFs) and it has not hit the top of our roadmap yet.

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Stephen, did you notice that you can sort labels alphabetically now? This seems to address your problem pretty well in the meantime.

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that’s okay Stefan, I know you guys are busy developing other useful features too. I can live with using the dedicated label window for now.

thanks, yes, that makes it easier to search (and pinning helps too).

Agreed, I would like to be able to search by label or ANY field within a citation.

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Just to confirm we have not forgot about this. Here is a quick preview of our first implementation of this feature. We are testing internally and hope to release it soon.

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When i alphabetize labels, is there a way to have that alphabetization show up in the drop down labelling function? Hope this is clear :smile:

Hi Stefan, My paperpile doesn’t give me the search results which include the lables/folders as shown in your screenshot. Do we have his feature after 2+ years? Thanks.

If you mean sorting labels alphabetically in your label search results, this seems to be implemented now.

Hi Dzemila,

I meant that in Stefan’s screenshot, when he typed in several letters of the keyword, the search result will start to provide some matches from wither the lables or folders created. I assume that I can simply click on either one and just directly to there. Moreover, the “Search online for…” and “Search PDFs for…” options are shown there.

However, in my Paperpile, there is no such function at all (screenshot attached). The search bar only gives me the matched articles in my personal library. I was all the time expecting the quick search available because I have hundreds of folders/sub-folders.

Thanks,
Brian

The function you’re describing doesn’t exist but instead, you can search your tags directly. Next to the labels list there’s a magnification glass that lets you search for your labels. Then you can click on what you want and go from there

Umm, interesting. I don’t see the “magnification glass” anywhere near my label list.

Moreover, it sounds like the “folder searching” function does not exist. I can only do “label search” instead which means I have to manually label all my articles again (unless there is a way to convert them automatically).