Search and Toggles
J
Johannes Gronimus
It seems that searching a page doesn't parse closed toggles, meaning one has to manually toggle-open everything when trying to search. This seems unneccesary - surely just parse the toggles and open those that contain the phrase?
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Beth
You can open all toggles with Cmd O, then if you open the search box with Cmd F after you will be able to search everything.
Beth
Merged in a post:
Search Overhaul: A Critical Request to Fix Global/Advance Search within Collapsed Toggles
A
Abhi Goutam
Hello Capacities Team and Community,
I'm writing to highlight a critical issue with the search functionality that significantly hinders the usability of the app, especially for those of us who manage large, detailed pages. Using toggles to collapse sections is essential for performance on large pages (like my 140,000-character page on the "Guhila Dynasty of Rajasthan"), but this feature seems to break the search function in two fundamental ways.
The New Issue: Global Search Finds, But Fails to Navigate
The global search (Ctrl+P or Ctrl+K) can correctly identify and list results that are hidden within collapsed toggles on a page. For example, when I search for "Abu Inscription," the search correctly tells me there are 3 results on my "Guhila Dynasty" page.
The problem is that these results are inaccessible. When I click on any of the 3 search results, the app only navigates to the location of the very first result. It never expands the correct toggle or scrolls to the location of the 2nd or 3rd result. This makes it impossible to access any search result other than the first one found on a page with collapsed toggles.
The only workaround is to open the page, manually expand all toggles (Ctrl+Shift+O), and then use the in-page search. This completely defeats the purpose of both the powerful global search and the performance benefits of using toggles.
This Builds on a Previous Issue: In-Page Search
This new bug is related to another issue I previously posted about regarding the in-page search (Ctrl+F). As mentioned before, the Ctrl+F search often shows "0/0" results for words that are hidden inside collapsed toggles, failing to find them at all.
Why This Needs a Search Overhaul
Taken together, these two issues show a systemic problem with how search interacts with collapsed content:
In-Page Search (Ctrl+F): Fails to find content.
Global Search (Ctrl+P/Ctrl+K): Fails to navigate to content.
This makes working with large, well-organized documents incredibly frustrating and inefficient. The ability to quickly find and jump to specific information is a cornerstone of any knowledge management tool.
The expected behaviour should be:
Both search functions should reliably find all text on a page, regardless of whether it's in a collapsed toggle.
Clicking a search result must navigate the user to the precise location of that result, automatically expanding any necessary toggles to make it visible.
I strongly urge the development team to prioritize a comprehensive overhaul of the search functionality to address these core issues. A robust and reliable search is essential for the app to scale with our knowledge.
Thank you for your consideration.
Note: The toggle expanding and collapsing not working in Androids, neither on Tablets nor on mobiles.
Edit: On a related note to improving search and the ability to locate information, I'd like to offer a small suggestion regarding tag navigation.
Currently, when I click on a tag, it conveniently shows me all the objects that contain it. However, if the tag is mentioned inline within a long paragraph, it can be quite difficult to find where that specific reference is.
A simple but incredibly useful quality-of-life improvement would be if the specific tag instance I clicked on could be temporarily highlighted when the page opens. For example, if I click the tag #Abu_Inscription and it takes me to small window of objects containing this mention , the text #Abu_Inscription on Gallay or Wall view of objects in that window would have a contrasting (highlighting) background, making it instantly visible, even we click on a page or an object the it show the tag or mention with temporarily contrasting highlight.
SIMILARLY AS HIGHLIGHTING TEXT IN GLOBAL SEACH RESULT.
I have attached a sample (of limited characters) with red circle which
I feel this fits perfectly with the broader theme of a 'Search Overhaul,' as it's all about reducing the time it takes to find exactly what you're looking for.
Thanks for considering again!
Beth
You can open all toggles with Cmd O, then if you open the search box with Cmd F after you will be able to search everything.
A
Abhi Goutam
Beth I already knew this but the problem is that I toggled the page because it has more than 200k characters if I open all the toggles the page start to freeze and doesn't even move, Even cursor stop working. If it is possible to add the feature of search in toggled of characters then definitely considered it. Thank you.
Beth
Merged in a post:
Bug Report: In-Page Search Fails to Find or Reveal Text Within Collapsed Toggles
A
Abhi Goutam
Hello Team,
I've identified a significant issue with the in-page search function (Ctrl+F) where it fails to properly find and display results located within collapsed toggles.
Description of the Issue
The search functionality behaves in two incorrect ways when dealing with collapsed sections on a page:
- Fails to Find Text: If a word is inside a collapsed toggle, the search function often won't find it at all, returning "0/0" results, as if the word doesn't exist on the page.
- Finds but Fails to Reveal: In other cases, the search counter correctly identifies that there are matches on the page (e.g., shows "1/3 results"). However, when I try to navigate to the match that is inside a collapsed toggle, the toggle does not automatically expand. The view doesn't change, and it's impossible to see the highlighted result.
The search either fails completely or finds the word but does not expand the collapsed section to show it, making the result inaccessible without manually expanding all toggles on the page.
Impact on Workflow
This bug significantly undermines the usefulness of the search function on long, structured documents. Using toggles to organize large amounts of information is a core feature for many of us, and when search can't operate within them, it becomes very difficult and time-consuming to locate specific information.
I hope this report is clear. A fix for this would be a major improvement to the user experience.
Thank you!
C
Carlos Petral
Clarification: this if for C-F search which, indeed, doesn't look at collapsed contents. That is a serious limitation for outline-heavy workflows, given that it neither seems to be a way to restrict C-P search to the current page.