Search is how Google got started, so it is hardly surprising that it plays a big part in Google Wave as well. Through search, it is a lot easier to manage waves, as well as looking up information in waves.
Some helpful Search Parameters
I have taken these from the Search Cheat Sheet wave, which still has plenty more. This is simply a list of those that I think would be the most useful.
The basic way to search is by typing in a keyword or a phrase, which will return any waves that contain the word or phrase, either in any blips in the wave, or in the title of the wave. For it to be really useful, excpet for very general searches, I would recommend combining it with some of the other operators, listed below:
Specifying Where to Search
- title:[keyword] — finds waves which have [keyword] in the title. Most of the time this is more useful for finding relevant waves.
- caption:[keyword] — finds waves which have an attachment where [keyword] occurs in the caption. I have never used it myself, but I guess it could have its uses
Status
- is:read — finds all read waves.
- is:unread — finds all unread waves
- is:unmute — finds all waves not muted
- is:note — finds all waves which have you as the only participant and contributor, you can use this for documents that you are working on, or to leave notes to yourself.
Participants
- by:[address] — finds waves from the participant identified by the address, you can also use from:me to find all the waves you have initiated
- with:[address] — find waves with a specific person (or with:public, which returns waves open to the public.)
- only:[address] — finds waves to which only the participant specified by the given address contributed (the wave might have more participants, but this is the only one that has actually added something to the wave)
Date Search
- past:[date term] — finds all waves in the last period.
- previous:[date term] — finds all waves in the period before the last period.
- before:[date term] — finds all waves before a certain period.
- after:[date term] — finds all waves after a certain period.
which can be combined with date terms:
- day
- week
- month
- year
So, you can write, for example: past:4days, or even past:4d, or if you prefer after:10-dec-2008 (which would bring up everything, since wave did not exist then). Alas, after will not bring unwritten waves, in case you wanted to see what you were planning to write.
Personal Setup
- in:[folder name] — find waves in the folder with the given name. For example, in:inbox.
- in:[search name] — find waves in the saved search with the given name.
- is:unfiled — find waves which have not been moved to a user folder.
Tags
- tag:[tag name] — finds waves with the tag [tag name]. It will also find tags that have a portion of that tag in them, for example a search for tag:moderated will return waves that have tag:reply-moderated as a tag, as well.
Saved Searches
It is possible to save any search as a saved search, and even apply filters based on search parameters. This is useful in order to keep all the waves for a single project together, just give them all the same tag, or to find the waves that were updated recently.
Another idea is to set up a saved search for public waves about a topic you are interested in, for example with:public title:”Google Wave” will ensure that you can see all the new waves about Google Wave as they are created. This works very similar to Google Alerts.
One saved search I have found useful is in:inbox is:unread, which allows me to see any waves that have been updated. I actually use this search instead of the regular inbox.
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