Independent screen-wide search?

[HappyJoe]

I miss not being able to search the current screen, web page, document, whatever, for a term - as I am able at my desktop with e.g. Ctrl-F. This seems like a killer app to me. ...Or is this ability already available, device-wide?

 

[ForkliftFred]

That Ctrl+F function is build into every individual PC program that you use it on. It is nothing to do with the operating system.

Similarly it would need to be build into the individual Android apps. I doubt it is possible to use one app to search the contents in another app, but I'll gladly be proved wrong.

The default/stock web browser I have features a "Find in page" option and I'd be surprised if document viewers don't have it

 

[chanchan05]

You can't use one app to search contents in another app. Its part of the sandboxing in Android for security, so that without permission from the system and the apps themselves, they can't modify or search each other.

 

[HappyJoe]

Points taken, folks, and thanks for the correction. A bit of thought would have apprised me of that!

The real search needed is of the entire device, not just 'sdcard', say, for any given byte sequence/string/number. This would be mostly fine for all but encrypted/application-otherwise-encoded search terms. Even a basic string search that could read (on rooted devices, of course) /system, /etc, etc. folders would be great.

 

[chanchan05]

It won't be available on Android natively I'd imagine. Apple has a device wide search feature patent.

 

[INvinter23]

That's not true. Google had a better device wide search integration. You can even use the google search bar to search apps and details within an app if you enable it. going to the search app and choosing which apps are included in the search allows you to quickly search anything inside that particular app.

 

[ForkliftFred]

I forgot about that! Just goes to show, it's always worth pressing the Menu button (even when you're already in a menu!)

Still doesn't search files (their name or contents) but as I said, the app you are viewing a document with should be able to search its contents

 

[HappyJoe]

Any of you folk tried to search outside the SDcard, you know, from the root? No? I thought so.

 

[chanchan05]

Any of you folk tried to search outside the SDcard, you know, from the root? No? I thought so.

We aren't searching the SD card contents. We're talking about phone wide content search. Searching from the root doesn't do anything when we're trying to search for a specific word on a website we're looking at. Nor would it be able to search through my Evernote or OneNote app for a specific entry I'm looking for.