Examining Universal Search, finding companies and Twitter 21
Fri, 29 May 2009 3:45 pm EDT
So, Mr. InvisibleMan over at PalmPreForums.org is having way too much fun with his illegitimately-obtained Palm Pre emulator. And we’re fine with that, because as long as he’s having fun with it, we’re learning more about the Pre without actually having any to, you know, use. And the videos just keep coming. This time he’s hit up the much-touted Universal Search feature of webOS and discovered a few interesting things.
Twitter has been added to Universal Search, or at least that’s what the big Twitter button in the Universal Search window is telling me. Also, we know that you can start off searching for an application or contact and can move on to a web search. But when you have an application or contact that matches what you’re searching for (say, I have President Obama’s contact info in my phone and want to see his Wikipedia page), all I have to do is hit the “Find…” bar and it will forcibly give me the web search options (Google, Google Maps, Wikipedia, and now Twitter).
Since it appears that the contacts application does not have the ability to categorize your contacts, we’re going to be in need of a way to narrow things down. If you have company information added into your contacts (President, United States of America for my Obama contact) you can search for that company and get all contacts that match that company. Carrying over from the old Palm OS Contacts application is the ability to search by initials - first name followed by last name (typing “boba” will bring up Barack Obama and Barry Obando).
Lastly, we get a look at how search works in other applications. In Memos searching will dig through the content of your notes, and in Messaging it will search by contact name. Unfortunately, these search capabilities are not integrated into the from-the-launcher Universal Search, but chances are if you’re doing a search, you will at least know in which application you intend to look.
21 Comments
Wait, the contacts app has no capability to assign contacts to categories? Is this confirmed? What the He!! is Palm smoking? P-OS could do this 20+ years ago. Every PIM I've ever seen had this capability. How could Palm miss this? I guess they weren't kidding when they said they weren't aiming for business users, because no businessman with a thousand or more contacts is going to want them all dumped in one category. He!!, even for personal use, If I want to find a restaurant, but don't remember the name, I sure don't want to scroll through every entry in my contacts looking for it.
I'm beginning to think Palm hasn't really learned anything.
Not saying having categories won't be nice, but I don't think it is as important on the pre as it was on older phones (which used categories to give you a shorter list that you still had to scroll through). If you had Restaurant somewhere in the contact name or whatever, it would still find it. Also on the flip side, if you happen to put too many contacts under a category, you'd still be in the situation of having to scroll that large category. Universal Search sort of minimizes the need for categories because you simply search across all contacts.
Again, I'm not saying it shouldn't have categories. Just saying I don't think it's as big a deal as you are making it out to be.
You're right, Universal Search kind of makes up for not being able to use categories, although the old Palm OS had categories *and* "universal search". It's just that "universal search" might not have been called like that (heck, what do I know, I know I'm still using it on my Treo 680 every single day) and could search through at least all the main Palm applications like contacts, memos, tasks, calendar (but even some third party apps) - just like what would the webOSes Universal Search name imply - only webOSes Universal Search seems not set up to search everything. For example, it looks like it's not searching memos so you have to go to Memos app first and then start searching memos. That's really sad and I hope someone is wrong about this or Palm improves that before or soon after launch. At least I'd like to have an option to choose what Universal Search will not search. Seems really trivial because the phone is capable of it, and this is due, apparently to just some design decision not to include it.
"For example, it looks like it's not searching memos so you have to go to Memos app first and then start searching memos. That's really sad and I hope someone is wrong about this or Palm improves that before or soon after launch."
Where would you want them to stop including stuff in the search. In other words, what shouldn't they include? The more stuff the search script checks, the longer it'll take to run the search. Also, the more results you get the more irrelevant things you'll have to filter through to find what you were looking for. I guess they could implement a search that searches your search results (:P) but that would be somewhat foolish.
I think categories are cool though. One benefit that they provide on some phones (that can't be fixed with just adding the category to the contact name or description) is the ability to set a ringtone for a group of contacts easily. Eg: everyone in the family category has ringtone X.
So, Taharka, you are saying that I now have to include the 'category' alongwith each name that I enter in my contacts? I used to do that on my dumb-phones, pre-Treo.
Sure, if you have a lot of contacts in any one category, you still have to scroll through that big list - but if you weren't even able to narrow it down to that category, it would make it even worse, having to scroll through the entire contacts.
Meyerweb has a valid point. Palm's original claim to fame was its spot-on execution of PIM. Isn't it really, really backwards for Palm to not include something as BASIC as this? Especially on such a cutting-edge device?
The 'sky is not falling'. But, when they pull sutff like this, it really does make you wonder - "Has Palm not learnt anything?"
So, Taharka, you are saying that I now have to include the 'category' alongwith each name that I enter in my contacts?
Well, that's what you have to do now to search by category don't you? It's not what I was implying however. Just mentioned that if the word happened to be part of the name or company it would find it. I was trying to say that having a dedicated category field may be less important now. I kinda like the idea Homie mentioned of using tags. But like most, I would really like it to simply search everything so that I don't have to worry about whether I entered the right tags or category for each record. I hope this is where they are headed.
LOL! I was being sarcastic, and you misunderstood me. I didn't mean entering a category in the 'category-FIELD'.... I meant 'typing' the said category alongwith the name, so that it would pull it up while searching the contacts. I used to do that with my dumb-phones circa late 90s, to enable me to search faster.
If universal-search does search EVERYTHING, then yes, having a dedicated category 'field' may be less important.
OMG, Palm is doomed! The sky is falling!! "Palm hasn't learned anything!"
typing
Negative, the alternate search is by first initial (B) and last name (Oba...) Trying to type a partial first name and a partial last name will not yield desirable results.
It will actually. You can enter first initial, space, last initial and get all contacts with those initials.
And entering "boba" in your example yields nothing unless there are contacts with that sequence of letters in their searchable fields.
I think you might have missed it. It's the same format as what is on the Centro (from what I can tell). If you type "boba" it will look for:
1.) first and last names [s]starting[/s] with this combination also
2.) looks for names with the first letter as first initial AND the remainder (oba) as the start of the surname
Derek knew what he was saying.
"baro" however doesn't work because it needs to be first THEN last. "bar o" would however.
You are correct that "b o" will bring up all contacts with the first and last names combination starting b and o, though order in this case doesn't matter. "o b" produces same result.
"b o" will bring up "betty owens","barbara olsen", "barak obama", etc. "beow" will NOT bring up "betty owens" for example. Also, "baob" will not bring up barak obama in this example.
When the search encounters a space, it seems it uses that as a delimiter. If you do not include a space, it searches the searchable fields for the entire string you've typed (except for what you said below).
If you type "boba" it will look for:
1.) first and last names [s]starting[/s] with this combination also
2.) looks for names with the first letter as first initial AND the remainder (oba) as the start of the surname
I stand corrected here. In my response I said that "ba ob" would be used for "Barak Obama". I miss-read "boba" to be "baba" (note the first "o" I read as an "a").
You are correct that "b o" will bring up all contacts with the first and last names combination starting b and o, though order in this case doesn't matter. "o b" produces same result.
The order does matter. Typing "o b" will not bring up "Barak Obama" unless you have him stored as "Obama Barak".
I don't own a Centro so I cannot speak for how it works on that device.
Wow, I have used Palm for years now but never tried entering space while searching for contacts. Thanks for the tip!
This has turned in quite a discussion here but I can confirm that Palm OS (not sure about webOS, but us Palm OS users expect webOS to live up to the "old" trusty Palm OS...) supports not only "first initial-beginning of last name" but also "beginning of first name-space-beginning of last name" search (without the space, or "beginning of first name-beginning of last name" doesn't work).
I was the one asking him about it. Its like the old Treos/Centro 1st initial of 1st name, then start typing last name ect.
Yeap. I was wrong on the 1st initial followed by letters from the last name. Sorry.
I mistook the o for an a in Derek's example. However, adding a space between the search entry does allow you to search for multiple letters in the first name followed by multiple letters in the last name. So you can do things like "be ow" for "Betty Owens" (which allows you to skip "Betty Olsen").
ya'll are nuts. this is a emulator, not the real thing. in fact since this was obtained on the sly most of the functions are not fully operable. so everyone chill. until you have one in your hands don't worry. I am sure you can type in what you need to get the person or place you need when it launches.
You are right that it's an emulator not the real thing. But where is the fun in leaving it at that? :-)
I have alot of contacts for one company. I also have an 800w. So what I did was list my contacts for that company this way:
"Company"/Joe Blow/"job title
SO...when I did a search in contacts..all I did was type in my company name and got the list of contacts for my company.....in alpha order. then just keep typing the name of the person.
So inthe example in the colunm above..I would do this:
"restaurants"/"name of resturant"
I know it a littl emore to type but it really narrows down the local search.
Instead if catagories what we need is the ability to put tags on contacts, calendar appointments, tasks, memos, emails, etc.
Take the search method all the way. No lists, search. I quit burying my emails in folders long ago. That is why there is a search feature. Tags would be a huge help!
I agree that tags would be a huge help. Until they exist, I will seriously mourn my contacts categories... if I get a Pre.
I do not want to lose my PalmOS functionality. I just want WebOS to build upon it.
Well, one positive, I guess, is that we can keep our categories intact by using Classic's contact interface. Not ideal, but it's something.