Search improvements and issues
under review
v
vision assemblies
further prioritize efforts / resources for better tuning of search results & for a result list displaying a) more relevant, b) more consistent, and c) more reliant & 'readable' results
the exact best way for weighing of different factors for search relevance can & should be discussed; as should be factors like regex search strings vs. exact word tokens (or the inclusion of subtleties like placeholders, wildcards etc.) ... though a lot has already been said & shared at different places :-)
but,
overall this basic functions needs attention and improvement across the board
.some of the issues mentioned regularly:
• hits in titles are not weighed / prioritized well enough
• the weighing of factors (title – tags – body etc.) seems not transparent & often erratic / inconsistent
• there is a more general experience of inconsistency (some expected and known cases don´t end up in search; sometimes the results for two logically very close-by strings are jumpy, i.e. produce grossly different results; result lists vary in unexpected ways depending on search scope (global vs object vs collection), even if they shouldn´t in theory, etc.)
overall, the search should appear more relevant and trustworthy. and: this should be prioritized. as 'search' is one of the most basic, fundamental + important things one does,
in any studio
;-)Log In
Steffen Bleher
marked this post as
under review
Beth
Merged in a post:
Search Only Finds Whole Word
C
Craig Eddy
If I search on "Investigate" it will not find a page that has the word "Investigated" (but if I search for "Investigated" that page will be surfaced). Maybe I'm missing something in the query syntax, but I would think that partial matches should be surfaced.
Beth
Merged in a post:
Cmd+F search does not scroll to matches inside code blocks
i
indian angus lee
When using the in-note search (Cmd + F) in the editor, matches that are located inside a code block are not scrolled into view if they are below the current visible area. The same keyword search works as expected in normal text blocks — the view scrolls to the match — but this does not happen for matches inside code blocks.
Steps to reproduce
1. Open any note in the editor.
2. Insert a code block and add enough lines so that the note becomes scrollable (some lines should be below the fold).
3. Inside the code block, add a unique keyword near the bottom of the block (so that it’s initially out of view).
4. Scroll back up so that the keyword is no longer visible.
5. Press Cmd + F and search for that keyword.
Expected behavior
The editor should automatically scroll so that the found keyword inside the code block is brought into view and highlighted.
Actual behavior
The keyword is found (the match count/highlight state updates), but the editor does not scroll down to the matching line inside the code block. The viewport stays where it is, making it seem like nothing was found unless the user manually scrolls.
Environment
• Capacities web app in a browser
• Platform: macOS (Cmd + F shortcut)
• Reproducible only when the match is inside a code block; normal text blocks scroll correctly.
Beth
Merged in a post:
Search not working
S
Shivanand Reddy Yerva
I have few hundreds of Quote object instances which I am collecting. But when I search for a quote(using the full text of that quote) in search box it does not show up. I have tried deleting few words and tried again then it showed up in the search result.
Full quote:
"To sit quietly, without trying to make something special happen, is the most important thing we can do for the transformation of our consciousness."
When I entered the above the quote it did not show up in the search result.
Modified quote:
"To sit quietly, without trying to make something special happen, is the most important thing"
I started deleting the words from the end side of the quote till the word thing, as shown above. The quote showed up.
Beth
Merged in a post:
basic search misses results
E
Eddy Faverey
Windows 11, windows app, pro user, v1.45.11
Beth
Merged in a post:
Search Filter by Tags Not Working
B
Brian Adams
On the web version when I use the search and filter by tags, the results aren't correct. For example, I have two disc golf courses with "River" in the name, but when I filter content tagged with "Disc Golf Course" and search "river" nothing comes up. When I search "River" without filtering by tags, they come up correctly.
Beth
Merged in a post:
[Search] Unexpected behaviour for snake case titles
J
Junhui Lee
Expected result:
- Searching for "registration" should find the page "dwd_evt_user_registration_di"
Current result:
- Cannot find this page unless I search for the entire snake case title "dwd_evt_user_registration_di".
Use Case:
- I keep a database of relevant hive tables for work. Need to be able to search through these tables by keywords instead of having to type in the entire table name.
- This is quite critical for my daily workflows.
Beth
Merged in a post:
Search not working as described
M
Michael Jasper
I'm trying to understand how to do more complex searches, as described here: https://docs.capacities.io/reference/search. I'm not seeing quite the same behavior. For example, if I search for the tag #strategy meetings, I get several meetings with that tag, as expected. But if I first limit the search to meetings by using /Meetings and selecting "Only show type Meetings", and then add #Strategy Meetings to the search, I get no results.
I'm also not seeing some of what's shown on that help page in terms of the extended search and the ability to layer on filters by properties, tags, text, object type etc.
Beth
Merged in a post:
Search Results Ranking Could Be Improved
x
xiaodong chong
Hello Capacities Team,
I’ve noticed that the search results ranking doesn’t always show the most relevant note at the top. As shown in the screenshots I’m attaching, the note that best matches the search query appears in the 3rd position, while the first two results don’t fully meet the search criteria.
It would be great if a future update could improve the ranking logic so that the most relevant results appear first.
Thank you for your continuous improvement and for this amazing tool!
Best regards,
Capacities v1.55.9; none none; Windows v10; Chrome v138.0.7204.251 (WebKit v537.36); Desktop (Electron); 2025/11/13 16:52:15; en (Asia/Shanghai, UTC+8)
Q
Qaid Jacobs
Search results are confusing and the way to use Search is inconsistent from view to view.
The global search provides results when even a single character is entered in the input, but this pattern is not followed with the Search in list views of Objects, like Tags or Files.
In Object list views,
- entering one character: has no effect
- entering two characters (even though they match the contents of the list): filter OUT all results to leave an empty list of 0 results
- entering three characters: produces a refined list of results as expected
Potential UX implications:
- For Object lists where the Titlevalues are less than 3 characters, this effectively means the search feature is blind to those items and makes them inaccessible other than by scrolling in order to locate those items if they are out of view.
- Searching with only two characters shows a false positive of No content foundwhich will always be incorrect if the list contains any items at all.
- Confusion: if the text search in a list view requires a minimum of 3 characters, it would be useful to indicate that in the UI to help the user understand how to get the most from the view/feature.
Load More
→