Feature request: contextualized search results

[iljajj]

Hi all,

I have been using Bookends (with a short hiatus) for aeons, but I'm using Mendeley on my work machine. For me, Mendeley's killer feature is that when I search for a term, it will search the PDF files attached to a reference as well and present that term, including the surrounding text - making it very easy to distinguish relevant search results. Since I'm working in the humanities, such a search mode is particularly useful. I would *gladly* pay an upgrade fee if Bookends would ever contain such a feature.

In anticipation,
Ilja

[Jon]

Bookends won't present the surrounding text, but you can perform searches on the pdfs attached to references. It's the Spotlight search option in the Find dialog (Command-F), which you can combine with reference searches, or the Spotlight option in the Live Search text box.

Jon
Sonny Software

[iljajj]

Hi Jon,

Thanks for the reply, and I regularly use the spotlight search, which is a great feature. However, it's precisely the presentation of context that could be so useful to me. I'm not saying you should steal the idea, but it might work as inspiration. Ahem...

[Jon]

Getting the context probably wouldn't be that hard. But give the UI, I can't think of any particularly attractive or friendly way to display it.

Jon
Sonny Software

[Jasso]

I was just thinking the same thing. I second this, if you ever see a way of implementing it.

In the mean time, I would love to hear if anyone knows can this be done in Spotlight or with some simply application or something.

[nicka]

I hope I can say this without being too much of a pain, but it would be good if the next stage in Bookends' evolution would be to bring the searching and annotation of pdfs into the application. It seems that would open up a lot of very useful possibilities.

Contextualised search as mentioned in this thread would be great; I've mentioned in another thread the problem that Spotlight apparently doesn't search in pdf annotations; others have previously mentioned the disconnect between Bookends' notes and pdf annotations. On that last point, I hope that any creative borrowing includes having a look at how Sente deals with notes on pdfs.

[rwg]

In the mean time, I would love to hear if anyone knows can this be done in Spotlight or with some simply application or something.

I use FoxTrot Personal Search. It is a little pricey but very fast, and you can copy text from a found document from within Fox Trot without having to open the document separately.

http://www.ctmdev.com/foxtrot/personal_search/