Semantic Search for Notes

[LHSequalsRHS]

Hey,

Thanks for this plugin.

I was wondering if similar semantic search can be done for notes that contain text and images(I use Better Notes plugin).

PS: The indexing window is annoying, and is still open under the discussions section. Let's hope the Zotero developers fix that issue.

[introfini]

Hi, thanks for the kind words!

Semantic search for notes: good idea, and the text part is feasible. ZotSeek currently skips notes entirely, but the underlying storage can already accommodate them, so indexing note text (including Better Notes content, which is stored as regular Zotero notes) is a realistic feature.

One scoping question for you: would indexing child notes (notes attached to an item) be enough for your workflow, or do you rely on standalone notes as well? Child notes fit naturally into the current model, where their text would enrich the parent item's search results. Standalone notes would need to appear as their own entries in the results list, which is a bigger change, so knowing your actual usage helps decide whether this can ship in stages.

Images inside notes are a different story. All the embedding models ZotSeek runs locally are text-only, so searching images by meaning would require a multimodal model and essentially a separate search pipeline. That's out of scope for now. The practical middle ground is that the text surrounding images (and captions) would be indexed, so notes with images would still be findable by their textual content.

About the indexing window staying on top: you've diagnosed it correctly, unfortunately. This is tracked in #14, and the root cause is in Zotero itself: its progress popup is created with alwaysontop=yes and no owning window, so macOS keeps it above other apps. It's been reported upstream on zotero-dev, and there's nothing ZotSeek can change on its side without replacing Zotero's own progress window. One thing that would help the upstream report: could you share your macOS and Zotero versions in #14? Fresh reproduction details strengthen the case.

[LHSequalsRHS]

Hey,

Thanks for the quick reply.

do you rely on standalone notes as well?

Rarely. I mostly attach my notes with the main item (parent-child relationship). However, others might do so.

could you share your macOS and Zotero versions in #14?

Done.

[introfini]

Thanks, that settles the scoping: child notes first. Indexing child-note text as part of the parent item fits the current storage model, so that is how I will stage it; standalone notes can come later as their own results entries if there is demand.

One correction to my earlier reply: "there's nothing ZotSeek can change on its side" turned out to be wrong. ZotSeek v1.21.1, released later that same day, works around the macOS problem by mirroring Zotero's minimize/restore onto the progress popup. However, since you're on Windows 11 (thanks for posting the versions in #14), that fix doesn't apply to your setup, and what you're seeing may be something different. I've followed up in #14 with a couple of questions to figure out exactly what's happening on Windows.

[LHSequalsRHS]

Cool, thanks!

I've followed up in #14 with a couple of questions to figure out exactly what's happening on Windows.

I have replied there.