2009-08-16 Google Wave Searching

Google Wave Developer Preview

searching for waves

inbox

When you sign into Wave and notice that the text above your inbox is something like Inbox 1-15 of lots, it is hard to not immediately conclude two things; you cannot catch every wave and you are going to need some search capabilities to find the waves worth surfing.

Google Wave Inbox 1 to 15 of Lots

search box

The Google Wave search box is right below that Inbox 1-15 of lots status message. It does in fact contain a search command already. The default contents of the Wave search box is in:inbox; that shows your inbox.

In the default search command, in: tells wave to search a particular folder, and inbox is a predefined folder.

overview

The best way to learn searching in Google Wave is to try it. This article is neither a tutorial nor a reference. It is a quick overview, adapted from the Search Cheat Sheet published within Wave, with a few brief remarks to help you make sense of it. It gives you an global idea of what you can search for and how to do.

wave search

You can search for files or images with a particular keyword in their filename name or image caption, but that the search function does not return either the files or images directly, it returns the wave that contains them.

keywords

A typical search is to search for a wave by some key word or key phrase.

search	result
`about:keyword`	waves that contain keyword
`title:keyword`	waves that have keyword in their title
`caption:keyword`	waves with attachments that have keyword in their caption

phrases

You can search for words, but you are not limited for words. Just as in Google search and Google Mail, you can search for phrases by using double quotes.

search	result
`tag:keyword`	waves that are tagged with the tag keyword

status

Waves have a status, much like email messages do. You can search for waves with a particular status.

search	result
`is:read`	waves that have been read
`is:unread`	waves that are unread
`is:mute`	muted waves
`is:unmute`	unmuted waves
`is:active`	active waves
`is:note`	notes

Currently, is:active finds the same waves as is:unread.

notes

Some waves have you as the only participant and contributor; with no one else reading or contributing, these waves are simply notes to yourself, and therefore known as notes.

images

If you joined Wave very early, you may think that the is:image command is missing. It is not missing, but it is no longer supported. To search for images, use has:image.

Attachments

Like email, waves can have attachments. You can search for waves with particular attachments.

search	result
`has:attachment`	waves that have an attachment
`has:document`	waves that have documents attached
`has:image`	waves that have images attached
`caption:keyword`	waves with attachments that have keyword in their caption
`filename:keyword`	waves with attachments whose filename contains keyword
`mimetype:`keyword	waves with attachments whose MIME type contains keyword
`has:note`	notes

coming soon

As I write this, some of these commands are still listed as coming soon. Right now, the only way to be sure whether a search command has been implemented yet, is to try it out.

Participants

search	result
`from:address`	waves from participant with email address
`by:address`	waves from participant by email address
`from:me`	waves from yourself
`from:me`	waves by yourself
`by:address`	waves to participant with email address
`with:address`	waves that list the participant with email address
`owner:address`	waves owned by the participant with email address
`only:address`	waves to which only the participant with email address contributed

owner

You are said to own a wave when you created the wave.

by versus for

The by and from keywords do the same thing. It makes it easy for you to use whichever comes more naturally to you.

dates

You can search for Waves by date.

search	result
`past:dateterm`	waves in the past dateterm
`previous:dateterm`	waves before the past dateterm
`before:dateterm`	waves before dateterm
`after:dateterm`	waves after dateterm

A dateterm does not specify any particular date, but a period.

dateterm	meaning
`ndays`	n days
`nweeks`	n weeks
`nmonths`	n months
`nyears`	n years
`nd`	n days
`nw`	n weeks
`nm`	n months
`ny`	n years

Notice that you can, but do have to abbreviate the dateterms to just one letter. An example search is past:3w; find waves from the past 3 weeks.

gadgets

Google Wave supports gadgets. You can search for waves containing gadgets.

search	result
`has:gadget`	waves that contain a gadget
`gadget:keyword`	waves that contain a gadget with keyword in their name
`gadgeturl:`keyword	waves that contain a gadget with keyword in its URL
`gadgettitle:keyword`	waves that contain a gadget with keyword in their title

combinations

Search commands can be combined using expressions.

search	result
`expr1 & expr2`	waves that match both expr1 and expr2
`expr1 AND expr2`	waves that match both expr1 and expr2
`expr1 expr2`	waves that match both expr1 and expr2
`expr1 \| expr2`	waves that match either expr1 or expr2
`expr1 OR expr2`	waves that match either expr1 or expr2
`-expr1`	waves that do not match expr1
`expr1 ... expr2`	waves that contain a gadget with keyword in their title

operators

and operator

Notice that there are three ways to find waves that match two search expressions; you can combine two expressions using an ampersand (&), using the keyword AND, or by just putting them one after the other, without any operator in between.

or operator

Likewise, you can search for wave that one expression or another by combining the two expressions with either vertical line (|) or the keyword OR.

parentheses

You may recognise & and | as the AND and OR operator as used in C and many other programming languages. Just as in those language, you can prioritise evaluation of expression by using parentheses.

For example, the search command wine & ( beer | -tacos ) matches waves that mention wine and beer as well as waves that mention wine and do not mention tacos.

XML Search

The waves of Google Wave are files in an XML-based file format. Several search commands allow searching for XML tags, attributes and values.