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  • Search keywords

    Hi again,

    I'd like to request the following features:

    1.- Right now, when searching for email, the field "Enter Search Keywords" just looks in the body of email (I'm not 100% sure about this). I am aware that you can just refine your search using the advanced options (To, From, etc.), but I think it would be nice to hace a "Search everywhere" field, either in the body, subject, attachments, from/to/cc/bcc adresses, etc (something similar to a google search). I would like to keep the possibility to add additional fields, but sometimes one just want to retrieve any email (or doc) that contains certain keyword everywhere (body, attachments, adresses, etc.).

    2.- I would like this to be extended also to the Internet SMTP headers, for instance, you may be look for an specific IP address.

    Related to this, I've noted that when searching for attachments, the search function doesn't work as expected. As an example, let's say we have an email with the attached document 'test.doc'. If I look for the keyword '*test*' or 'test', I won't be getting this email as a result. But if I look for the exact word 'test.doc', I will. Something similar happens when looking for email adresses; e.g. I can use the advanced field "To" using 'test' and I will get any email sent to the adress "test1@test.com", "test2@test.com", etc. It looks that it already implies the use of wildcards or derivatives when it should not (in my opinion). I think different fields (body, header, attachments names, etc.) might be treated differently by the indexer/parser, but that's just guessing.

    I am sorry if this is already covered in the search tutorial or help.

    Thanks in advance!!!


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  • #2
    1) Yes, the additional fields (such as to: from:, etc.) are searched via the advanced options. It probably does make sense to index them as part of the normal search index as well.

    2) Yes, we could index the SMTP headers too.

    Regarding filenames, "test.*" and "test*" should find "test.doc". In this example, are you searching via the "Enter Search Words" field? or elsewhere?

    "test" will not match "test.doc" because we are considering dots to be a distinct character. Otherwise it could be much harder to find specific filenames.

    The advanced fields behave differently because they are substring (aka partial text) matches. I am not sure why you think it should not imply this behaviour? In many cases people do not have the exact e-mail address.
    Ray
    PassMark Software

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    • #3
      Thanks Ray,

      Regarding the filenames, I'm using the "Enter Search Words". If it helps, the email I'm processing comes from PST files.

      By the way, another issue I've encountered is about the date field of email coming from EML format. I guess there is no way to get the date other than parsing the EML file, but in the search results page all of them are marked as sent/received on the 1/1/1601 (the default null Windows date).

      100% Agreed on the distinction with the "." char, didn't though about that.

      The advanced field issue (default use of substring) is just about mantaining coherence between behaviour of different fields. One might argue that sometimes you don't know the exact keyword you are looking for thus the "Enter search keyword" should also use substings by default (instead of a wildcard when you are not sure about the word). Anyway I think this is not really an important issue, but something that a user should have in mind when using the software (as it is not something that you could infer easily maybe it could be a good idea to mention it on the help webpage).

      Hope this helps!

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      • #4
        I think we should be able to do better with the dates for EML format. But Christmas is upon us, and it will have to wait until start of Jan 2012 to see what is possible.

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