Search¶

Every collection screen has a search bar right above the item list, and it comes in two flavours. Basic mode is a row of filter chips you click together — no syntax to learn. Advanced mode is a query language for everything the chips can't say. The two are views of the same search: you can switch back and forth at any time, and Collectary remembers which one you used last.

Basic mode¶

When you open a collection in basic mode you'll see a small text box, a chip reading collection: Your Collection, a + More button, and a sort picker — much like Jira's basic search, if you know it.

The text box filters by item name as you type — loco finds every item whose name contains it.
Chips are little dropdown buttons, one per field you're filtering on. Click one and a small panel opens: for choice-like fields (single/multi choice, yes/no, collections) you get a searchable checkbox list — tick one value for "equals", tick several for "any of these". For everything else you get a single input that filters by contains for text-like fields and equals for numbers and dates.
+ More opens a searchable list of every field you can filter on — across all your collections, plus the built-ins like created and updated. Picking one adds a chip; a chip with nothing ticked shows All and simply doesn't filter.
Sort by is a compact ⇅ button that picks a field and direction for the result order; once a sort is set it shows the direction as an arrow (⇅ ↑ / ⇅ ↓). The chosen field lives in the button's menu — and in its hover tooltip — so a long field name never crowds the other controls.

There is no Search button in basic mode — every change runs the search right away. All chips combine with AND: an item must match the text box and every chip that has a selection.

When the window gets narrow¶

On a wide window everything sits on one row. As the window shrinks — or on a phone — the chips, + More and the sort picker would start fighting the text box for space, so instead the bar tucks them away: you're left with just the search box and a Filters button. The button keeps a running count of what's active — Filters (2) — and shows a small dot when a sort is set, so you always know filtering is in effect even while it's collapsed. Tap Filters to fold the chips and sort picker back into view, stacked below the search box; tap it again to hide them. The text box stays put the whole time, because searching by name is the one thing you almost always want within reach.

On a really narrow phone, even the sort, mode and Filters buttons need more room than fits beside the search box. When that happens the bar gives the search box its own full-width row and drops those buttons onto the line below, so nothing ever overlaps or gets clipped off the edge.

Advanced mode¶

Click Advanced and the bar turns into a text box pre-filled with exactly what your chips were saying — collection = Trains AND Status in (open, done) ORDER BY Name, say. That makes basic mode a nice way to learn the query language: build a filter with chips, switch over, and read what it wrote.

Going the other way, Basic converts your text back into chips whenever it's a plain AND of simple conditions. Queries using OR, NOT, parentheses, comparisons like >, is empty, or several sort fields are more than the chips can express — Collectary tells you so and stays in advanced mode, with your query untouched. One small wrinkle: your text is re-written in the bar's canonical form when you convert, so spacing and quoting may change while the meaning stays the same.

Writing a query¶

A query is a list of conditions joined with AND and OR, with optional parentheses and an optional ORDER BY at the end. A few examples:

Status = open
Status = open AND Price > 50
preset = "Books" AND Price > 3 OR (Author != "Twain" AND Pages in (100, 200))
Tags ~ rare ORDER BY Price DESC, name

As you type, suggestions pop up under the box: first your field names, then the comparisons that field understands, then — for choice fields — the values it can take. Use ↑/↓ to pick one, Enter or Tab to accept it, Escape to dismiss the popup. Press Enter (or the Search button) to run the query.

Fields¶

Conditions name fields by their label. The match is across collections: if both Books and Games have a field labelled Price, then Price > 50 matches items in both — even when one is a currency field and the other a plain number.

A few built-in names always work, no matter what your fields are called:

Name	Meaning
`name`	the item's display name
`preset` (or `collection`)	the collection the item belongs to, by name
`created` / `updated`	when the item was created / last changed

If a field's label collides with one of these, both meanings apply — the condition matches when either does. Field names with spaces go in quotes: "Purchase Price" > 10.

Fields that hold images, audio, file attachments, or nested lists can't be searched (yet) — they don't show up in the suggestions, and typing one by hand gives you a clear message instead of an empty result.

Comparisons¶

Operator	Meaning	Works on
`=` / `!=`	equals / does not equal	everything
`<` `<=` `>` `>=`	less / greater	numbers, dates, ratings, durations, weights…
`~` / `!~`	contains / does not contain	text-like fields, tags, multi-choice
`in (a, b, c)` / `not in (…)`	matches any of the listed values	everything
`is empty` / `is not empty`	the field has no value / has one	everything

Text matching ignores upper/lower case for A–Z. Values with spaces go in quotes (Status = "On Hold"), numbers use a dot as the decimal separator (Price > 10.5), and dates are easiest written as 2025-06-15. Currency values may include the symbol (Price > €10), percentages the % sign, and durations understand 90, 1:30, and 1h 30m.

Dates also work in the format your app language uses — a German user can write created = 13.06.2026 just as well as created = 2026-06-13. A date always means your calendar day: created = 2026-06-13 finds everything you created on June 13th your time, even if the clock in another timezone had already rolled over to the next day.

Measurements and weights understand units. A bare number compares amounts regardless of unit (weight = 500 finds both 500 g and 500 kg), while a value with a unit only matches that unit: weight = "500 g" finds the 500-gram item and leaves the 500-kilogram one alone. Units are matched by name, not converted — weight > "1 kg" won't find an item stored as 1500 g. Sorting by such a field orders by the raw number, ignoring units.

!=, !~, and not in only match items that have a value for that field — an item without a Status at all is not matched by Status != open. Use is empty to find those.

Sorting¶

Finish the query with ORDER BY and one or more fields, each optionally followed by DESC:

preset = "Books" ORDER BY Author, Published DESC

Sorting works across collections too; items without a value for the sort field go last.

Searching across collections¶

Delete the pre-filled preset = … clause (or just write your own query without one) and the search runs over every collection you can see. When the results span more than one collection, an extra Collection column appears so you can tell where each item lives, and opening an item takes you to its own editor with its own fields.