| Re: What counts as "Any Metadata"? [message #1538 is a reply to message #1537] |
Wed, 26 October 2022 03:15   |
Atlas
Messages: 142
Registered: August 2009
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Senior Member |
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Thanks for clarifying the following Foxtrot behaviors: When Foxtrot says it's using "relative path", what it's referring to is the path RELATIVE TO THE INDEXED FOLDER, not relative to the home folder. Thus, if the user indexed the folder "/Users/Atlas/Documents/Stuff", then the relative path for the file "/Users/Atlas/Documents/Stuff/document.pdf" would be empty UNLESS user turns on UseRelativePathForParentFolder.
Why I support index fullpath:
As discussed in this earlier thread about indexing fullpath, I support the current implementation of UseRelativePathForParentFolder. In my case, the queries do perform as expected (the two queries above give equal results) after I turn on the hidden preference AND rebuild the index. Not rebuilding the index was user error on my part. My desired behavior is that when users turn on UseRelativePathForParentFolder, and they search for a string, that string could be anywhere in the fullpath of files. Thus, when users search for "Any Metadata", it means the string could appear in any extended attributes like tags or anywhere in the fullpath of files.
The reason for this is straight forward: Users often store relational data (data that tells users how contents are related to each other) using both hierarchical structures -- i.e. nested folders -- as well as non-hierarchical structures -- i.e. tags. Thus, when a user like myself want to search for keywords that describe how contents are related to each other, we have to search for those keywords in both the fullpath and the tags. For example, a piece of content relating to the topic "automation" might be under a folder named "automation", or it might have a tag named "automation". Since the filter conditions of Foxtrot cannot be combined together in complex boolean statements (mixtures of AND's and OR's), it's good to be able to search for the keyword in ONE foxtrot search condition using "Any Metadata".
Why indexing fullpath is logically consistent
I understand the concern that allowing index of the full path mean users would get a lot of false positive results if they search for "the name of their indexed folder". This is an annoying behavior. However, there are two reasons why this is a logically consistent behavior that users would expect:
1. We would expect that all files relating to topic X would be under the folder named X. Thus, all contents under the folder "/Users/Atlas" are expected to be related to the topic "Atlas", which is why we would expect that Foxtrot returns all files under the folder "/Users/Atlas" when the user request Foxtrot return all files "relating to Atlas" by searching for the keyword "Atlas".
2. I'm sure a lot of users, like myself, store our documents in a big folder called "Dropbox". What happens when users search for documents relating to Dropbox and all they type is just "Dropbox"? Of course, they end up seeing ALL files stored in Dropbox, but this is obviously expected. Users know they need to form more specific queries so that they don't get so many false positives. In particular, I search for files relating specifically to Dropbox, by searching for the keyword "Dropbox" in the Contents field, and not just in all fields.
My current concern
Please don't "store an empty string as the relative path for files directly in the indexed folder". Due to size and organizational constraints, I use multiple smaller indexes rather than one massive indexed folders (which is recommended by Foxtrot). For example, I store my notes in a folder called "/Users/Atlas/Documents/Stuff/MyNotesX". I index this notes folder directly rather than indexing the parent folder, so that I can reduce my index size. If you store an empty string as the relative path for the files that I store directly inside this folder, then I wouldn't be able to search for files stored directly under the MyNotesX folder by searching the for keyword "MyNotesX". Think of how strange it would be if the query would return files under ".../MyNotesX/Topic A/Topic B", but not directly under ".../MyNotesX" when I use the search term "MyNotesX". Clearly, contents relating to MyNotesX are UNDER the folder called "MyNotesX", so users would expect to see all files under that folder. Please keep the current behavior of storing the fullpath as relative path if users CHOOSE TO TURN ON UseRelativePathForParentFolder. Another alternative is to store only the name of indexed folder as the relative path for files stored directly under the indexed folder.
[Updated on: Wed, 26 October 2022 03:27] Report message to a moderator |
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