App with deep search functionality?

[rfog]

DEVONthink To Go. Not easy to use, steep learning curve, but has that and more.

[BionicGecko]

Originally Posted by rfog

DEVONthink To Go. Not easy to use, steep learning curve, but has that and more.

Thank you for the suggestion rfog. I gave it a shot but unfortunately this application doesn’t work for my use case:

• It seems ePubs are not supported by the app at all;
• The result of the full-text search is a simple list of documents containing the looked-up word; there is no indication of the number of instances found within a given book, or contextual information about those instances;
• Clicking on the document in the result list simply opens it at whatever page was last reached in the book, i.e. not at the location of an instance of the looked-up word.

I will keep on looking

[jdege]

Epubs are essentially just zip files. Standard zip tools will work.

[BionicGecko]

Originally Posted by jdege

Epubs are essentially just zip files. Standard zip tools will work.

Agreed, if one is only concerned about knowing whether a word or expression is present in a document or not, and if one doesn’t mind fiddling with files in this manner. We’re just getting very far from what I was looking for when I created this thread: an iOS app which will search an expression inside multiple PDFs and ePubs, return all instances found across all books with contextual information (e.g. for each instance, an extract of the passage containing the expression), and when selecting one of those instances, will open the book directly at the location of that instance.

The Android app “Search in Books” which I mentioned above does all this extremely well; it’s unfortunate that there is no iOS version.

[jdege]

Grep, by default, displays every line from a file that matches the search pattern. Zipgrep will do the same for each file in the zip.

For me, that's enough context.

[BionicGecko]

Originally Posted by jdege

Grep, by default, displays every line from a file that matches the search pattern. Zipgrep will do the same for each file in the zip.

For me, that's enough context.

And how do you grep on a non-jailbroken iPad? I’m not interested in running commands on a computer. I want an iOS app which does all this for me

[rfog]

Originally Posted by BionicGecko

Thank you for the suggestion rfog. I gave it a shot but unfortunately this application doesn’t work for my use case:

• It seems ePubs are not supported by the app at all;
• The result of the full-text search is a simple list of documents containing the looked-up word; there is no indication of the number of instances found within a given book, or contextual information about those instances;
• Clicking on the document in the result list simply opens it at whatever page was last reached in the book, i.e. not at the location of an instance of the looked-up word.

I will keep on looking

Yes, but you talked about PDF. Said this, you aren't going to find any other program as complete as DTTG. Ah, they have pending add ePub support in the future, they said.

[jdege]

Originally Posted by BionicGecko

And how do you grep on a non-jailbroken iPad? I’m not interested in running commands on a computer. I want an iOS app which does all this for me

iPads and iPhones are essentially disposable. You can't trust them to store data.

I use Android, but the essentials are no different. I have 1000× as many books stored on my server than I keep on my tablet or phone.

And yes, I can ssh into my server and search all my epubs, without having to load them onto my phone.

[BionicGecko]

Originally Posted by rfog

Yes, but you talked about PDF. Said this, you aren't going to find any other program as complete as DTTG. Ah, they have pending add ePub support in the future, they said.

Thanks for the info, I will be on the lookout for this update!

Originally Posted by jdege

iPads and iPhones are essentially disposable. You can't trust them to store data.

I use Android, but the essentials are no different. I have 1000× as many books stored on my server than I keep on my tablet or phone.

And yes, I can ssh into my server and search all my epubs, without having to load them onto my phone.

It's great that this solution works for you, however it is completely unusable for me. I cannot launch a search on the computer, see a list of results, then switch to my ipad, and for each instance found, manually find and open the book, and then manually go to the indicated page. It takes too much time and defeats the objective here, which is to seamlessly and quickly visualize relevant recipes from all my cookbooks, with pictures, and decide in a matter of minutes what I'll be cooking tonight.

As mentioned above, there is an Android tool which does exactly that, so it's not such a farfetched requirement; it's just a matter of someone having the time and inclination to implement it in iOS. Or I could also imagine a network-based solution where the server actually does the rendering of the books at the locations found, and then sends those pre-rendered views to a browser.

[BionicGecko]

So as perhaps a final update, I finally found an iOS app that does what I need: easySearch. The price is very steep however.

The free version is limited to folders with 10 files or less; I guess I’ll test it for a while and see if it’s worth the money.

Thanks to all who contributed for your help!

[ki5ck]

Look into Readwise Reader. That might fit your needs.

[BionicGecko]

Originally Posted by ki5ck

Look into Readwise Reader. That might fit your needs.

Thank you for the suggestion, I appreciate it! I had a look and unfortunately it doesn’t work for me; full-text search only returns a list of books containing the searched expression, not a list of instances found within each book, and there is no way to open the book directly at the page where the expression is located (books always open at the beginning).

It seems it is still in beta, so perhaps there is room for improvement here. It does look like a rather full-fledged reading app for those interested in reading from multiple online sources; at almost 100$ a year however this might be a tough sell. I wish them luck!

[skillachie]

Originally Posted by BionicGecko

Apologies for misunderstanding the context of that thread on featureos.app; I'm glad to know you guys are working on it! Will keep my eyes peeled for the update



My use case for using FTS is rather modest to be honest, I'm not sure I would qualify my objective as "research or knowledge" but I'll certainly be happy to join the ranks of your paying customers when it is available!

Oh that is indeed interesting and good to hear that there are other use cases and requests for these features outside of the knowledge management and research group. Will follow up when we kick off development of this feature to get some insights into your use case to ensure it is covered.