Better Search function for WM ? better memo/notes ?

[monkeyboy]

I'm very keen on finding a better Search function for WM (Touch), particularly one that works well with the Notes system. I'm used to the simple but competent ol' Palm OS Memo + Global Find on Palm OS. Any suggestions ?

I think the Notes app on WM is a lousy substitute for even the 10-year-old Palm OS Memo app and the WM Search function is a pale shadow of the Palm Global Find. What is the best replacement for Memo+Global Find that provides:

1) FAST creation of simple text memos
2) FAST searching through *all* memos (and preferable all other documents on the WM PDA), yielding an easy to navigate list of search hits (matches)
3) using the list of hits, selecting a hit/match pops you into the Memo (or other app) with the right document exactly at the position of the hit.

Using WM Search on a few dozen Notes is very, very slow and when you select a search hit, it just opens that note, it doesn't place you in the exact position of the hit, and worse, there is no Find option within Notes.

3rd party options I've looked at, like PhatNotes don't seem to do this as well.

The easiest single solution would be a new Search app that knew how to search through at least all Notes, if not also Word and TXT files, producing a list of hits. And upon selecting a hit, Search should know how to jump into that app and that note/file/whatever and position you right at the point of that hit...

So simple, Palm OS did it 10 years ago, why isn't there something like this for WM ?

[cykococo]

Originally Posted by monkeyboy

I'm very keen on finding a better Search function for WM (Touch), particularly one that works well with the Notes system. I'm used to the simple but competent ol' Palm OS Memo + Global Find on Palm OS. Any suggestions ?

I think the Notes app on WM is a lousy substitute for even the 10-year-old Palm OS Memo app and the WM Search function is a pale shadow of the Palm Global Find. What is the best replacement for Memo+Global Find that provides:

1) FAST creation of simple text memos
2) FAST searching through *all* memos (and preferable all other documents on the WM PDA), yielding an easy to navigate list of search hits (matches)
3) using the list of hits, selecting a hit/match pops you into the Memo (or other app) with the right document exactly at the position of the hit.

Using WM Search on a few dozen Notes is very, very slow and when you select a search hit, it just opens that note, it doesn't place you in the exact position of the hit, and worse, there is no Find option within Notes.

3rd party options I've looked at, like PhatNotes don't seem to do this as well.

The easiest single solution would be a new Search app that knew how to search through at least all Notes, if not also Word and TXT files, producing a list of hits. And upon selecting a hit, Search should know how to jump into that app and that note/file/whatever and position you right at the point of that hit...

So simple, Palm OS did it 10 years ago, why isn't there something like this for WM ?

The short answer to your question is I have not seen an app out there that does an adequate search.

[TMB_XV6700]

Monkeyboy,
The search function on my 9-year-old Compaq Ipaq (the original PPC) also functioned much better than the modern devices. Although it "gee-whizzed" the heck out of me back then, it's just not a feature that gets used very often by most people. I imagine it lost out in one of MS's tugs-of-war over resources.
The whole issue of syncable notes seems to have similarly lost ground. (Outlook's and WM's notes synchronization is so backwards as to be laughable). I'm wondering if that's supposed to be an explicit push to One Note....

[monkeyboy]

Originally Posted by TMB_XV6700

The whole issue of syncable notes seems to have similarly lost ground. (Outlook's and WM's notes synchronization is so backwards as to be laughable). I'm wondering if that's supposed to be an explicit push to One Note....

But I've tried out the mobile app component of OneNote and even that thing doesn't have any Find function and WM Search doesn't understand OneNote data to do searches on... I would consider OneNote except that it doesn't seem to offer the functionality I want either...

[deltaecho]

Originally Posted by monkeyboy

I'm very keen on finding a better Search function for WM (Touch), particularly one that works well with the Notes system. I'm used to the simple but competent ol' Palm OS Memo + Global Find on Palm OS. Any suggestions ?

I think the Notes app on WM is a lousy substitute for even the 10-year-old Palm OS Memo app and the WM Search function is a pale shadow of the Palm Global Find. What is the best replacement for Memo+Global Find that provides:

1) FAST creation of simple text memos
2) FAST searching through *all* memos (and preferable all other documents on the WM PDA), yielding an easy to navigate list of search hits (matches)
3) using the list of hits, selecting a hit/match pops you into the Memo (or other app) with the right document exactly at the position of the hit.

Using WM Search on a few dozen Notes is very, very slow and when you select a search hit, it just opens that note, it doesn't place you in the exact position of the hit, and worse, there is no Find option within Notes.

3rd party options I've looked at, like PhatNotes don't seem to do this as well.

The easiest single solution would be a new Search app that knew how to search through at least all Notes, if not also Word and TXT files, producing a list of hits. And upon selecting a hit, Search should know how to jump into that app and that note/file/whatever and position you right at the point of that hit...

So simple, Palm OS did it 10 years ago, why isn't there something like this for WM ?

As far as searching all type of documents I have not seen anything of the sort other than the build in search. However, I have been closely following a very promising note taking application, EverNote for Pocket PC http://www.evernote.com/products/eve...ology_preview/ . Currently it is offered as a "Technology Preview". I have been using this for the past few week and have been pretty impressed even though it does have a few quirks and cant really sync with the desktop version.

Some highlights:

-Tagging of notes
-text, drawing, picture, or voice notes
-excellent search: highlight the hit in each note
-Notes organized by visual time line
-"zoom" to level of detail of note listing, ie. only first line, 3 lines, entire message displayed, etc of each note.

Im very excited about this product and cant wait for the next version.

[christinme7890]

yeah the notes part of the ppc is lacking. I like to open notes not to take text notes but to use the stylus to hand write notes. But, even that sucks. I have noticed that the note software will randomly move pieces that I have written and mix stuff up. There was one time I was making a small list and had about 10 pieces to the list (just a simple list of people I needed to contact) and I exited, but when I came back to the note, a few names were way out of place. So much out of place that they were displayed over other names which made the list irrelevant. I want a better note taking software...don't too much care for the searching.