Methods and systems for search indexing
The present invention provides for quick and efficient searching. One embodiment includes a first instruction configured to read at least a first search string and a second search string entered into a same first search field, and a second instruction configured to incrementally filter search results to locate at least a first document that has a least a first word that begins with the first string and a second word that begins with the second string.
1. A computing system comprising:
one or more hardware computer processors;
a display device viewable by a user of the computing system;
a computer readable storage medium storing:
an index data structure comprising associations between each of a plurality of character strings to associated files of a plurality of files in which the character strings are included; and
software instructions executable by the one or more hardware computer processors causing the computing system to:
cause display of an interactive user interface on the display device, the interactive user interface including at least a first search field;
receive a first partial search string in the first search field;
receive a second partial search string in the first search field;
wherein the first and second partial search strings are separated by a string separator character in the first search field;
searching the index data structure for a first one or more of the plurality of files each including at least one string that corresponds to the first partial search string;
searching the index data structure for a second one or more of the plurality of files each including at least one string that corresponds to the second partial search string; and
updating a set of matching files of the plurality of files as each successive character of the first partial search string and the second partial search string is received respectively in the first search field by identifying any of the plurality of files included in both the first one or more of the plurality of files and the second one or more of the plurality of files, wherein the first partial search string and the second partial search string are non-adjacent in at least one of the matching files.
2. The computing system of claim 1 , wherein the set of matching files includes a first file wherein the first partial search string precedes the second partial search string.
3. The computing system of claim 2 , wherein the set of matching files includes a second file wherein the second partial search string precedes the first partial search string.
4. The computing system of claim 1 , wherein the index data structure comprises indications of character strings associated with respective attribute fields of the files.
5. The computing system of claim 1 , wherein the interactive user interface includes at least:
an email search mode interface having email-specific attribute search fields including at least a date field, a from field, and a sender field;
a document search mode interface having document-specific attribute search fields including one or more of a file name field, a file type field, a date field, a file size field, and a path field; and
an email attachment search mode interface including one or more of a name field, a date field, a size field, and an extension field.
6. The computing system of claim 1 , wherein the index data structure is generated and updated by an index module that generates at least an email index corresponding to a first plurality of the files that are emails, a document index corresponding to a second plurality of the files that are documents, and an email attachment index corresponding to a third plurality of files that are email attachment files.
7. The computing system of claim 1 , wherein the index data structure includes an email index, a document index, and an email attachment index.
8. The computing system of claim 1 , wherein the first partial search string comprises characters corresponding to at least a portion of a first string being searched for and the second partial search string comprises characters corresponding to at least a portion of a second string being searched for.
9. The computing system of claim 1 , wherein the software instructions further cause the computing system to:
display in the interactive user interface indications of the set of matching files.
10. The computing system of claim 9 , wherein the software instructions further cause the computing system to:
receive selection of a first file of the displayed set of matching files; and
display in the interactive user interface a portion of the first file.
11. The computing system of claim 10 , wherein the software instructions further cause the computing system to:
highlight a plurality of occurrences of the first and second partial search strings in the first file while not highlighting portions of text between occurrences of the first and second partial search strings in the first file.
12. The computing system of claim 1 , wherein the string separator character is selected from: a space, “<”, “(”, “[”, “{”, “′”, “!”, “@”, “#”, “$”, “%”, “{circumflex over ( )}”, “&”, “*”, “)”, “;”, “:”, “′”, “?”, “>”, “,”, “=”, and “+”.
13. The computing system of claim 1 , wherein the files comprise emails, text documents, contact information, appointment information, task information, music files, system files, photographs, videos, and/or images.
14. The computing system of claim 1 , wherein the first search field corresponds to a single field of the files and matching files are identified based only on content of the single field of the files.
15. The computing system of claim 14 , wherein the single field comprises one of: to, from, cc, bcc, subject, folder name, date, size, attachments, or body fields of email files.
16. The computing system of claim 14 , wherein the single field comprises one of: name, path, size, item type, date modified, date created, or content fields of document files.
17. The computing system of claim 14 , wherein the single field comprises one of: name, email address, phone number, company, job title, or content fields of contacts files.
18. The computing system of claim 14 , wherein the single field comprises one of: subject, start date/time, duration, recipients, location, recurrence, attendees, attachments, or content fields of calendar files.
19. The computing system of claim 1 , wherein the first partial search string applies to all textual content of the files and the second partial search string applies to only a single field of the files.
20. The computing system of claim 1 , wherein modifiers can be applied to either or both of the first partial search string and second partial search string to include one or more operators selected from: AND, OR, NOT, NEAR, date ranges, and size ranges.