Prioritize title matches in fulltext search

Basically: include exact match and title in search bar results

There's no other way to say it - the searchbar (the regular one that says Search notes) is frustrating.

Ideally it would be a one-stop search solution. I feel like the more notes I create, the more I'll feel the friction of not being able to do a general search that covers all the bases at once and sorts results by how good the match is.

I would prefer if it also searched for both title as well as exact text and prioritized by:
1. -exact-/ordered -title- match,
2. followed by -fuzzy- title matches,
3. followed by -exact- fulltext search (or, if it at least allowed exact search),
4. followed by the fuzzy search it does rn or a modified one that searches as if the title were part of the text

To elaborate on 4: that is, it can match e.g., a word from the title plus a word in the note body, or whatever - basically for this last one it should work the way it would now if you just copied the title into the body - I suppose there could be a workaround there involving plugins? But idk if that would cover the rest of this request.

Sometimes I'm searching for a title, but it turns out the note is super old so it shows up at the bottom of the results, or doesn't have the words that are in the title in the note body itself, so it doesn't work (kinda funny when you think about it, since one of the main purposes of a title is for search, so of course the words in it will be liable to come to mind when you're searching).

But wait, you say - why don't you just use the ctrl+O menu to search by title? In general I don't actually usually use the ctrl+O menu. The large search bar is simply a lot more usable for me in terms of using the mouse (e.g., it's larger, so I don't have to be so precise w/my clicking). Tho tbh even if I used ctrl+O, I like having fulltext search as well, since I don't always remember note titles even if I toss a keyword salad into the title when I make them. I'd honestly say it's 50/50 whether I'll remember the title name, since you can't always predict the exact words you'll associate with a note when you first create it, esp b/c the note could evolve as could what you want to search for.

In fact, I feel like what I'm really asking for right now is more of a bug fix tbh

tl;dr include title in search bar, sort the results better, and include exact search

See also: https://amplenote.featureupvote.com/suggestions/475835/include-title-in-fulltext-search-or-exact-search

Suggested by weirdalsuperfan Aug 21, 2023

1 Comment

11:08am on August 21, 2023

Just commenting on your "why I don't use Quick Open" explanation: You can open Quick open by clicking on the icon inside the search bar, it will open the Quick Open icon for you to search for note titles.

About the operators: You can already search for tags using the "in:" operator, so you could search for notes that are tagged as work by typing "in:work", for example. You can also search for groups of notes by their innate characteristics, using the "group:" operator. For example, you can find notes that have tasks inside them by typing "group:taskList". You also don't need to remember them, since the search will show an autocomplete dropdown menu.

You can learn more about search operators here: https://www.amplenote.com/help/search_filter_tags_groups

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