message search for short string

Discussion of bugs in Mozilla Thunderbird
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shimself
Posts: 114
Joined: December 19th, 2003, 5:59 pm

message search for short string

Post by shimself »

I was searching my messages (Cntrl+K search) for a very short string, just 2 characters

No messages match your search
it says

Actually there are plenty of matching messages, presumably the problem is that there is a minimum length. Couldn't the results message say so?

That's it
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tanstaafl
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Posts: 49647
Joined: July 30th, 2003, 5:06 pm

Re: message search for short string

Post by tanstaafl »

You're using global search, whose user interface badly needs improving. It seems to have a minimum length of 3 characters. I agree it should tell you that, but Thunderbird has numerous features such as detecting email scams that IMHO are only half-way implemented.

The quick filter bar (Control+Shift+K) or edit -> find -> search messages (Ctrl+Shift+F) don't have a minimum length.
shimself
Posts: 114
Joined: December 19th, 2003, 5:59 pm

Re: message search for short string

Post by shimself »

tanstaafl wrote:You're using global search, whose user interface badly needs improving. It seems to have a minimum length of 3 characters. I agree it should tell you that, but Thunderbird has numerous features such as detecting email scams that IMHO are only half-way implemented.

The quick filter bar (Control+Shift+K) or edit -> find -> search messages (Ctrl+Shift+F) don't have a minimum length.
Cntrl-Shift-F says nothing found in body which isn't true. Quick filter does work correctly, albeit somewhat slowly. No matter, thanks for the support
wsmwk
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Joined: December 7th, 2004, 6:52 am
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Re: message search for short string

Post by wsmwk »

It is correct that minimum search length for global search is 3 characters, for performance reasons. (And I believe statistically words/strings of 1-2 characters tend to be insignificant.)
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