suggest: make searches efficient

["D Bera" <dbera web gmail com>]

Hey,
  These days searching gives me headache. There is too many
information out there. I frequently have to use complicated and
cleverly thought query syntax to narrow my searches (same for Google).
I always change my query if I have to visit more than the first 20
results (again, same for Google). I never realized that personal
information space could be so vast and varied :-/.

  So I ask you for suggestions, how to make searches efficient ?

  Please suggest only tangible methods e.g. no neural network based
context-sensitive feedback tracking system to determine what the user
had in mind. We will leave dashboard for that :)

  E.g. frequently I know what kind of things I am looking for - a
photo, an email, a contact, an application etc. The query syntax
allows you to type "filetype:image" or "type:Contact" or
"source:application" to specify the needs. But thinking and typing
that elaborate thing will often take enough time to destroy my desire
in continuing searching. Could be add interesting query syntax to make
it easier ? It has to be short and easy. But it should not deviate
from the obvious meaning e.g. if we decide adding "videos" to the
query would only query videos then that would destroy searches with
the intent of finding the word "video" in the data/metadata.

Anything that could be done on the UI side ? A drop box of every
possible data type ? My problem with a drop box is if it is naively
filled with entries, I have to click on it, scroll through the list
and then click again to select the type ... thats 2 clicks and a huge
careful scrolling!

This will require an ongoing effort, so be creative.

Email partially inspired by looking at the deskbar, gnome-do,
kbeaglebar etc. On small systems, they work nicely and return you the
apps or contacts etc. But they are designed to encourage you to look
in the first 5-10 results only. That does not work in a long used
system with lots of different data. Note that quicksilver or launcher
specific apps do not have this problem since they already search
within a narrow search scope.

Thanks,
- dBera

-- 
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Debajyoti Bera @ http://dtecht.blogspot.com
beagle / KDE fan
Mandriva / Inspiron-1100 user